This Hero is Sleeping!

"… It would piss off the wretched gods."

"What…" the Orc's eyes widened. "Blasphemy…"

Elric, on the other hand, broke into a small smile at Claude's words. He didn't think that this friend of his would be as bitter as he was. To openly bare his fangs against the gods who seemed to have brought them here, he didn't imagine Claude to be one capable of something like this.

The Orc did not miss Elric's actions.

"I get it!" It screamed and pointed at Elric. "Y-you! You must be the—"

"—That's correct," Elric intervened. "I am…" He raised his hand over his head and posed. "The Ruler of Water!"

"You must be the bastard trying to manipulate the hero!" The old Orc screamed. It banged its stick on the ground a final time. "Do it! Kill them! Someone go and call Gardar!"

The Orcs charged ahead again. Claude had already heard everything he wanted to. With the gauntlets in his hand, he lowered his posture and dashed away. Elric followed right behind as the two of them ran through the now broken door and out of the hut.

Orcs had jumped out from the walls of the broken hut and were circling them. The path that led behind the lake was completely blocked by the encroaching Orcs.

Claude alone could have broken through, but Elric was slow and weak.

"What should we do… It seems they also left to call that scary scarred Orc from before."

Elric nodded at Claude's words as he assessed the situation. The two of them kept running back to avoid the Orcs.

One Orc pounced at them. Claude and Elric rolled on the ground and moved to the side to avoid the Orc before taking a wide distance again. It was just one for now, but if they slowed down, all of them would catch up.

With no other choice, Claude and Elric bit their lips and continued dashing forward. They leaped over the boulders and ducked under the trees as they ran toward the lake, their eyes not stopping for a moment in search of any escape.

"Over there!" Claude shouted. Amid the woods on the side, a narrow path not wide enough for the Orcs stretched ahead. The trees would hold them back as they ran through it. He pivoted on his feet and rushed toward the path in the woods.

Elric followed after Claude, they ran into the path of the trees. Leaves and branches smacked their faces, but they ignored it all and continued running ahead. The thundering sound of the Orcs slowly faded away as the giant monsters had no choice but to slow down to pass through the trees.

This was it.

They had managed to get away.

Claude ran past the last of the trees, and his feet came to a screeching halt.

Blue.

An almost transparent shade of blue stretched out ahead. The path of the forest, lead toward the banks of the lake.

Claude snapped his head behind, further from the trees, the Orcs were slowly squeezing inside the path. He looked around, but the growth was so dense that running anywhere else was pointless, they would be caught in no time.

The Orcs were coming from the front.

The lake was behind him.

They were stuck.

Elric ran out of the woods after him and stopped in his tracks too. The boy heaved at the sight of the lake, the fight with Grabar and the constant running around from even before that had completely tired him out despite his increasing endurance, on top of that, to be faced with the lake that was corrupted by the Orcs.

"GRA!"

"E-Elric… we're stuck…"

"I can't… use the water either. The lake is uncontrollable…"

The Orcs were coming closer. The slow tapping of their feet like the ticking of their clock. Swimming in the lake, they had already seen one Orc swim, it was impossible to outdo those monsters in the water.

The steps of the Orcs loudened.

The trees shook.

The ground trembled.

The first of the Orcs emerged, in a line behind it, were the dozens others.

Claude clenched his teeth and pulled up the goblin's club. It glowed white as his magic power seeped into the club.

The Orc swung its hand down on them. Claude parried the attack with his club—

A crashing sound rang out.

—The club broke into pieces and fell to the ground.

"N-no way…"

"GRARARA!"

The Orc swung its fist down again when a burst of white smoke emerged from the Gauntlets. Responding to Claude's mana, the gauntlets created a boom of mist. The wisps spread past the Orcs and into the woods, it seeped into the trees and blanketed the top of the lake. The mist thicker than a pile of snow-covered anything and everything around them in the blink of an eye.

And in the very next second, the world around them changed.

The path in the forest was covered with trees. The lake behind them had been replaced by a crater in the woods. The approaching Orcs, the settlement, the dead end, everything disappeared in a moment.

Only Claude remained the same, with the broken hilt of the club in his right hand, and Elric holding onto his shoulder from the back.

"Ahh…" A sigh escaped Claude. His knees caved in and he fell off his feet.

With the glowing gauntlets in his hands, Claude landed on his knees before letting his body fall to the ground. Each breath was painful, and each muscle in his body pained.

Behind him, Elric too fell on his back and landed on the ground with his eyes facing the sky.

"Is it over…?" Elric asked.

"I don't know… Hasn't it, only started?"

"Is that so…"

Through the veil of leaves, Elric's eyes landed on the moving clouds above.

Clouds.

"Hey, Claude…" Elric called out.

"Yeah?"

"You alright?"

"Yes… just a tiny headache."

"Is that so…"

The two of them closed their eyes.