Overlord Volume 15 (Travel in The LOTR Forest)

A ridiculous defeat

"Impossible!"

Camus and the rest of the dark elves naturally could not compare with their forging skills to the great dwarfs that lived in the mountains between the Baharuth Empire and Re-Estize Kingdom. Their skills when it came to forging weapons at most amounted to just barely being able to reform them and maintain their sharpness. A sword being broken was a tragedy as repairing it was nearly impossible for them.

If their isolationist lifestyle had any real downsides, it was being cut off from things that they could not get by themselves like new armour and equipment. Most of what they used was more than several decades old. Due to this, it was such a painful sight when...

"Aaah! My blade!"

To Camus' horror, he saw how even though he struck a relatively weak spot in Momon's armour, it was still thick and strong enough to not only chip but even break Camus' blade. This blade was not the best in the tribe by any means, as to have the captain walk around with a high quality blade would be seen as arrogant, but it was still a priceless weapon in the tribe as they had almost no way to replace it.

There was not much time to mourn his loss as Camus snapped out of his shock when he felt the blade of a sword swinging at him with miraculous speed and weight. It was not an exaggeration to say that it carried enough strength to take his head off in one fell swoop.

By pure luck that his reflexes moved before his mind did, Camus was able to sway back just enough for the wooden blade to graze past him and just skim the tip of his nose.

Immediately, he dashed back several steps before finally focusing on what had happened.

In his entire existence, he had only once come across armour that could break the blades that tried to pierce it. This armour had been worn by people who called themselves adamantine adventurers who had come on what they called a quest to 'locate' tribes of demi-humans so that the kingdom could establish trade with them. Back then, the late captain of the hunter troupe exchanged blows with them but was unable to force out more than a draw. Until the day he died, he regretted not being able to kill them as due to them getting away, the kingdom learned of their existence which caused slave-masters who sold exotic slaves to be drawn to their forest. Thanks to those adventurers, half of an entire generation of elf children was stolen away. Never to be seen again.

Could this man be the same? Could he be one of those adamantine adventurers?

At this point, Camus' eyes turned bloodshot as intense madness boiled within him. Before, Momon had announced himself as a human in service of the skeleton sorcerer Ainz Ooal Gown, but with this amount of skill and his carefree attitude whilst traversing forests, it should have been apparent that this man was an adventurer of high calibre form the very beginning! Now that he knew that, it didn't matter if he was whipped to death by the elder or even caused the scorn of the Sorcerer King. He would gladly die, but not before he chopped off this bastard's head!

If ten men were asked whether Camus was just a vengeful fool at this moment who didn't consider the immense repercussions of what he was about to do, they would all say yes. But if they were ten inhabitants of the tribe, they would agree with Camus and say they would do the same in his stead. This was the insurmountable gap in mentality between humans and nonhumans. To dark elves, some things weighed more than logic or consideration. Even if their actions meant an even worse fate tomorrow, to them that was still a sunset away whereas they lived in the now. Humans who possessed this kind of thinking weren't impossible to find, but were in the minority when compared to normal humans that wouldn't let emotions get the better of them if it could mean death for not just themselves but all their loved ones as well.

Camus gritted his teeth as he looked at Momon who was standing there in front of him without moving. He looked completely calm despite having just brushed off a deadly attack simply due to the durability of his armour.

Unlike his opponent, the black clad warrior stood like a mountain and seemed unfazed by the amount of killing intent that oozed out of Camus like a current.

Strong armour and astounding speed and strength combined by a strong mental fortitude... this one won't be easy by myself and without my blade.

With his blade destroyed, there was only one option open to Camus and that was to use his spare dagger as a substitute. With just a dagger against near impenetrable armour, his choice of targetable areas was that much smaller, but his mobility would be that much more flexible.

To elven warriors like himself, speed was his greatest weapon. Even if his foe was stronger, he had still been unable to counter Camus until after his attack had hit. The fact remained that he couldn't keep up with him before. But now...

"[Black Stride], [Mirage Step], [Greater Execute]!"

Camus activated his three martial skills that would give him the greatest evasion rate and step-in speed along with equally great destructive attack. As long as his opponent wouldn't be able to counter, it would guarantee a win.

It bugged Camus that Momon had not activated any martial skills of his own. Even those adamantine adventurers back when they fought the previous captain had been forced to match their skills with the captain's if they didn't want to die.

As he began closing in step by step and was preparing to dash towards Momon, Camus decided that it was probably due to human arrogance. Just because he clearly had some skill, this human believed that he was capable of fighting Camus one on one without any martial skills.

Holding on to that train of thought...

Camus dashed towards Momon.

An enormous amount of dust flared up as Camus neared Momon who still had not put up any real guard as he simply stood motionlessly in place. He had barely taken any form of fighting stance in front of Camus who shot towards him with the speed of an arrow that was straight on point.

Just as Camus was about to enter Momon's range, he changed the flow of his movements as he employed a special foot technique to rapidly shift directions. This was an even more advanced trick than the one he had used before to get behind Momon. If this human couldn't see through the previous technique, he would not be able to see through this one either. With that in mind, Camus shifted his position and seemingly teleported out of sight as he sidestepped to Momon's right side. Whilst the latter would still be confused as to where Camus had gone, he would execute his killer move and stab Momon straight through the slit in his helmet.

All of this would happen in the time it would take to blink and at the end of it all Momon would be dead.

At least that was what was supposed to happen...