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The next morning.
Anticipating a large crowd, I had the soldiers keep everyone from approaching within a certain distance.
“So many people... It’s the extermination of monsters that threaten their lives, but is it really worth watching...?”
The first task was monster extermination. Well, maybe because they were monsters that ruined crops? It wasn’t something that directly destroyed people’s lives.
They came swarming in every morning, wrecked the fields, and then wandered back leisurely around noon. The problem was the legs covered in miasma.
Any land trampled by those legs became tainted with miasma, and only crops humans could not eat would grow there. So the people of Colchis would either wipe out every nearby monster before it could reach the farmland, or drive it far away.
Hmm. The original use for the pills Medea gave me was probably to throw them behind the monsters and make them burst, so that when their attention turned that way, you could attack from behind with ease.
But the method I was about to use was completely different. It was something no one could easily do, and because of that, it would leave a powerful impression in people’s memories.
I approached the monsters’ habitat, took the pill from my pocket, and detonated it directly in my hand.
From a distance, Medea—watching me tensely alongside King Aeetes—was instantly struck with shock.
The fragrance in the pill soaked fully into my body, and the prowling monsters all lifted their heads and looked at me.
To be honest, I felt sorry for them too. But only that far.
They moved according to instinct for survival, and so I would kill them in order to survive as well. Let me say this first: I am not a humanitarian. I only try to save them when they become twisted and attack because of some particular circumstance.
But if this was just a part of nature, a part of the instinct to live...
Then I would simply struggle to survive too!
“Come on, then! I’m running this way!”
Instead of Eremos, the spear I had been using until now, I fastened Akolitos—a sword that seemed to bear the opposite color—at my waist and began luring the monsters toward me directly.
“Grrk? This smell is...”
“Squee! Over there!!”
Yes, this way.
I drew in a deep breath, then let out a fierce roar.
“Hrrrgh... KRAAAAHHHHH!!!!!”
Then all the monsters that had been wandering through the forests and fields around Colchis instead of chasing me turned their eyes toward me, sniffed the air, and came surging all at once after the scent.
All right, then... let’s see.
“Shall I go wild?”
Even though the number of monsters charging at me was no joke, I laughed. It had been a long time since I’d felt my heart pound with this kind of tension, and my fighting spirit was boiling up. The personality from my previous life had already faded a great deal. It had provided the foundation, yes, but my previous life was still my previous life. The only thing I could take from it now was information.
The moment I drew Akolitos hard from my waist, I split the wolf-shaped monster charging at me in a single stroke.
King Aeetes, seeing me cleave a wolf monster—something that would normally take three ordinary soldiers just to subdue—open his eyes wide and pressed a finger to his forehead.
Then I lured a boar charging at me, made it catch on a protruding rock so that it pitched forward, and brought my blade down on its neck to finish it off. I kicked the corpse, which was needlessly blocking my view, straight forward, crushing the monsters behind it as well.
At the same time, my sword struck again in a flash, tearing off the front leg of another wolf monster. Then I twisted my foot and kicked its snout cleanly, sending it flying together with the monster charging from behind.
Originally, I had planned to kick off, follow through, and stab both hearts at once, but I twisted slightly away from the shadow falling over me and slipped one step to the right. A split second later, a snake-shaped monster plunged into the place where I had been standing.
The impact kicked up a cloud of dust that obscured my vision, but for me, who could hear them, it was meaningless. I gauged the snake’s position and distance from the direction of the sound and the shadows cast through the dust, then gripped my sword with both hands and thrust like lightning.
The snake let out a pained scream, apparently struck cleanly in the forehead, and I brought the embedded sword down to sever its head precisely.
“The monsters slain so far: about ten.”
And one monster dealt a fatal blow.
I turned my eyes and calmly assessed the situation, then moved my feet again, ducking low to evade the monsters charging from the front. Some took advantage of the moment my balance shifted to attack from behind, but...
“Your movements are too simple.”
Spinning around the sword I had driven deeply into the ground, I slammed my knee hard into the temple of a monkey-shaped monster, knocking it senseless, then grabbed its tail and hurled it violently into the rocks on the opposite side, bursting it apart.
Then there was a horse-shaped monster that rushed in at tremendous speed, raised its forelegs, and tried to trample me...
“Your wind-up is too big.”
Its belly was split open while its forelegs were still raised, by the sword I had already prepared, and its innards burst out.
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Seeing that they were being cut down helplessly, the monsters seemed to decide that charging blindly was no longer enough, and they cried out to one another, but...
“Sorry, but I can use your language too.”
“What!?”
The moment I could understand their language, that part became pointless.
Then, deciding that if it had come to this a full assault was the only answer, they launched themselves at me all at once—starting with three bull-shaped monsters, followed by four bats, three snakes, two monkeys, two leopards, one horse, and even the two wolves I had knocked flying earlier. Every remaining monster charged straight at me.
...This is going to be a little rough.
I took a deep breath and gripped my sword tightly with both hands. The first monster within range was a bull. So I caught the two horns driving straight toward me, sprang onto its back, and in one stroke sliced through its thick nape.
Using the collapsing bull’s back as a springboard, I leapt into the air and, with just two spins, tore away all the wings of the bats that had been obstructing my view.
“Hoo... ngh!?”
As I came down from the air and turned my gaze forward, I failed to evade completely the two monkeys using the momentum of their descent from the trees to aim for my eyes, and I ended up with a wound on my right cheek.
I leapt far back from that spot at once, roughly wiped away the blood running down my cheek, and reset my stance.
“As expected, being attacked all at once in such a chaotic mess is a bit much.”
Even the moment I was wounded by the monkey, I was glad I had managed to swing my sword and take at least one of them down.
Next, two snakes tried to coil around me at the same time and crush me to death, but do you really think I, whose strength surpasses the original Jason’s and who can even resist Magecraft, would let them squeeze me so obediently!?
I drove my sword into the scales covering the snake’s constricting body and tore them open. Then, with my free hand, I yanked out the exposed flesh, inflicting pain they had never experienced before and forcing the bodies wrapped around me to loosen.
In that instant, I swung my sword up hard and split the two of them in one go, while a wolf that had lunged at me was shredded by a slash that twisted through my wrist.
The bats, having lost their wings and fallen to the ground to crawl, were all crushed to death by the falling snakes, and the monkeys that had been heading for the trees were instantly crushed beneath the body of the wolf I had thrown.
The leopards, who had been watching without moving for a while, also rushed in together with the wolves and tried to tear apart my defenseless left shoulder, but this had been my trap.
I punched the nose of the wolf charging at the front so that it slammed into the sharp claws of the leopard attacking from the side, and for the bulls charging at me from both sides, I simply leapt back. Unable to slow down, they smashed into each other and died.
The horse tried to surpass all of that and crush me with its sheer weight, but I had already sprung forward ahead of it, grabbed its tail, climbed onto its back, and cut its neck with my sword.
The body of the wolf should still have been deeply embedded in my foot, and I should not have been able to pull it out even now, yet the leopards were charging at me while freely swinging the leg that had been freed. Thinking of sacrificing flesh to take bone, I let the two leopards’ attacks strike me, avoiding only the vital points.
“Kgh!!!”
For an instant, my vision went completely white, but I succeeded in tearing out the throat of one leopard passing by my side, and then I drove the sharp upper part of the sword’s hilt into the forehead of the leopard rushing in next, ending the monster extermination on my own.
“Hah, hah, hoo...”
Breathing hard again and again, I clutched my abdomen where the last leopard had struck me and walked over to the king.
“Hoo... the monster extermination... is complete.”
Medea, seated beside the king, seemed to have no intention of hiding her feelings for me and was covering her mouth while crying so hard it startled me.
When I was about to call her name, I noticed traces of Magecraft seeping into her face, and with a mix of relief and bitterness, I lowered my eyes.
So that’s how it is. You were hiding it.
You like me that much. You want to help me that much.
Looking at her, my chest ached even more. What was I supposed to do with this excessive love I could never repay?
The king forced his stiff face into a smile and answered me in a worried tone.
“Hah, hahaha!! Splendid, truly... splendid... But are you all right? You seemed to be hurt quite badly just now.”
He stood up and came over to pat my shoulder, and there was some force behind the gesture. Well, for me, that much was only ticklish.
Not only the people of Colchis, my comrades, and the crew I had assembled from the populace, but even the soldiers of Colchis shouted and applauded with tremendous enthusiasm.
The people of Colchis seemed to be cheering because they could keep their livelihoods, while the soldiers were cheering because no one had died and the monsters had been driven off, just like my crew.
Because the task differed from the original tale, the period for carrying it out also changed. Thanks to that, I had more time for discussion, and after thanking the foolish king, I received another report that night.
“It seems the public mood is turning favorable, perhaps because they were moved by the sight of the captain slaughtering all the monsters they were supposed to face. Not just the common people, but the soldiers as well.”
After getting thoroughly scolded by Asclepius once more, I was sitting down with my upper body wrapped in bandages, having received treatment so forceful it was practically emotional and far too excessive for the injuries I had sustained.
Tsk. It wasn’t necessary to go this far. Aside from the attack I deliberately took at the end, I hadn’t been hit cleanly by anything.
“Thank goodness. It was worth getting hurt while handling a task that could have been completed without injury...”
Clack!
“You little swekki. Is that what a patient is supposed to say right now!? Is it!? Huh!?”
Damn it, somehow Asclepius’s hand feels harsher than the wound I got from the monsters.
I rubbed the back of my head, now stinging from the blow, and clicked my tongue. Then I bowed and begged Asclepius for speaking out of turn.
Ugh, I really can’t win against Asclepius...
“It’s not ideal for Jason to get hurt, but it is true that the effect was decisive.”
When my close friend Heracles defended me, the others who looked ready to pour out their complaints immediately forced their anger down.
This is... embarrassing in more ways than one.
Still, the king’s rest period was two days. He really was giving me time at just the right moment. If he was going to extend my preparation time like this, then I had no reason not to be grateful.
But during this rest period, I had no idea what kind of schemes the king might try to pull.
Well, whatever reaction he showed, it wouldn’t matter to my plan. If he made the first move, I could simply use that as an excuse to counterattack.
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