The rhinoses, covered in tough, rocky skin, charge into Brandenburg, flooding in like ants to sugar. Even though they have huge bodies, over four meters long overall, as long as they’re going straight, they’re as fast as the wind, and that surge of momentum is advancing. However, there is a large obstacle blocking their way.

“Haaaaah!”

Although the rhinos’s skin is like metal, the knees of its front legs are where it’s most vulnerable, and in the instant that she passes them by, she pierces them six times, in such a brief moment that those around her couldn’t see how many times she struck, toppling its gigantic body and stopping its movements.

“Out of my way!” she shouts as she kicks an approaching rhinos, literally sending it flying. Although she’s taller than the average woman, she’s barely half as tall as the rhinos, and even to those who witnessed her kick, all that comes to mind is the word “absurd”. Like a chain reaction, another rhinos gets caught in it, shrieking as it falls over.

“N- no way..” someone mumbles. That’s just how much the surrounding soldiers are overwhelmed by Irene’s incomprehensible act.

Their reactions delayed due to their shock, Irene’s sharp gaze brings them back to reality, and when the fallen rhinos begins to stir, arrows and spells are sent flying towards its abdomen.

Though, she didn’t expect it to be this large of an incident either. According to Chaos, she’s become one who specializes in attacks, known as a Berserker, and sure enough, she’s noticed that her speed and strength are greater than before. But even if she does have Alexia’s support magic, she never could have anticipated that it would be to this extent. With how huge it is, she only expected to blow it away, at most. ..That’s still pretty far removed from how a normal person would think, but she is unaware of this because she still hasn’t realized that Chaos and Alexia have corrupted her way of thinking.

Since her role in Chaos’s party is to evade and draw enemies towards her, securing her footing is incredibly important for her. After all, she can’t fulfill her role if she can’t move because her leg got caught on a corpse. If it was a normal party, there would barely be ten corpses at most, so she would be fine as long as she moved a little bit, but she had Chaos and his inexhaustible stamina. Because of him and how he can hunt 50 or even 100 monsters continuously without becoming the least bit winded thanks to his crazy stamina that makes her doubt that he really is a mage, it’s a common sight for the ground at her feet to be covered in corpses. That’s why kicking away an enemy that was in her way to secure her footing was so automatic for her. And by performing that role in the party, she gained overwhelming speed and strong legs.

Well, that works just fine.?Although it was an accident that occurred because she put more strength into her kick than usual because it was so gigantic, since she doesn’t have a way to make wide-range attacks like with magic, it’s a convenient attack for her to kill a bunch of enemies at once.

Since Brandenburg’s walls have only collapsed in this one spot, the rhinos invasion is naturally concentrated here. She has as many projectiles as she needs. In that case, there’s no reason not to use them. Irene looks around for a suitable enemy.

“Sleep Cloud!”

Now that it’s shifted to a ground battle, Alexia lifts the ban on status ailment magic to hold back the invasion, even if only a little. Unlike griffins, rhinoses can’t invade if they can’t move their legs, and as beast-type monsters, sleep and paralysis attacks work on them. Sleep Cloud, which causes multiple targets to fall into a light sleep, and Paralyze Chain, which paralyzes the enemy by trapping them in a chain of light for a short time, reduce the rhinoses’ surging momentum. However, the rhinoses just madly charge to trample the soldiers.

‘..How odd. Are they not thinking about anything?’

Seeing the rhinoses continue to charge in without changing their methods even the slightest bit, Alexia feels that something’s off. Perhaps it’s because her earlier battle with the griffins left a strong impression on her, but the rhinoses don’t feel like intimidating or formidable opponents to her. This is because the griffins were truly cunning and would quickly stop their attack and improve their strategy if their attack methods weren’t effective, but in comparison, the rhinoses are blinding charging towards the same location as if that’s all they know how to do. Of course, the rhinoses’ military strength is significantly greater than that of the defending side, so it wouldn’t seem strange if she thinks of it as a strategy where they ignore casualties and use brute force. But if they’re coordinating their advance with the griffins, this seems far too crude of a strategy.

‘Monsters attacking a city in a group like this is unusual in and of itself, but it’s even more unusual for their attacks to be so monotonous.’

Alexia ends her train of thought. To her, it’s more convenient if her enemies aren’t formidable. Although the number of griffins has greatly decreased, since their battle with the soldiers on the wall is still going strong, there’s almost no air support. If the griffins get reinforcements, they’ll have to fight a battle on two fronts. She has to strike while the iron is hot. Intently, she continues using status ailment magic to toy with the single-minded rhinoses.

And so, as the rhinoses are put to sleep and fall over, Irene kicks away as many of them as she can. As their thick skin caves and they meet their end, other rhinoses are brought down with them and a cloud of dust forms. Then, Irene looks a nearby mage in the eye, prompting him to attack.

“Eep?!” the mage shrieks.

‘Why is an ally making you shriek?’ she complains in her mind. No matter how ignorant of love she is due to pursuing the sword, as a woman, she gets a bit of a complicated feeling from this. Although she neither intends nor plans to get married, she feels a bit discouraged at the thought that nobody would take her as their wife as things are.

‘This is all that idiot’s fault..! Next time I see him, I’ll punch him!’

Although she knows that she’d just be taking her anger out on him, she decides that once she makes it through this battle, she’ll punch the mage who isn’t here. After having this thought, she starts enjoying herself. With this feeling on her mind, she confronts the rhinoses once more.

Will we defeat the rhinoses before they trample us??This desperate battle has turned into a contest of endurance.

***

How long has it been since I started drifting away from the city? This event where you just keep on walking without even knowing why is seriously the work of the devil. What the heck kind of event is this? I don’t understand the point of it. Maybe this is an unknown event that hasn’t been discovered yet.

Since the world of Another World is so huge, not all of the events have been found. Even now, as the strategy wiki reports new events, it’s not a comprehensive list of every event, and there are a lot of events where the activation conditions aren’t clear. And if it’s an event this large-scale, it wouldn’t be strange for there to be a discovery report posted on the wiki or the forums if someone found it. It’s possible that I missed the report itself, but there’s a high chance that this is an unknown event. Since it’s such a large-scale event with the whole city involved, the activation conditions for this event must be pretty strict.

Well, I am interested in the event, but that aside, I have to find a way to escape, so I try to get out of this group. However, the soldier-like NPCs that are positioned to surround the group end up getting angry for disturbing the line. What do I do? Those two are waiting for me. Oh yeah, I can just use Warp Portal. I’m not in battle, so it won’t prevent me from using it.

As soon as I think of it, I teleport to the Portal in Brandenburg. Apparently, almost all of the city’s residents were in that group, since the area looks deserted. I hurry to the Adventurer’s Guild. Will it be alright even though I’m late? I should make sure to apologize.

I arrive at the Adventurer’s Guild, but it’s also deserted. There’s not even any NPCs. C**p, has it been so long since the meeting time that they’ve already logged out? But still, why aren’t there any NPCs even? Maybe they were somewhere in that group from earlier. Man, if only this weird event hadn’t happened at such an important time!

“Huh, there’s still an adventurer in a place like this?” a voice suddenly calls out from behind. When I turn around, I see a soldier-like man gasping for breath as he looks at me. “Well, whatever. Monsters are invading the city right now, so if you want to survive, you help too!”

Monsters? Why are monsters attacking the city? Normally, cities are safe zones, so I doubt monsters would be allowed to invade. Hold on, maybe this is the cause of that nonsensical walking event? The residents fled because of the monster attack. I didn’t understand why the NPCs were leaving the city, but thinking about it that way, now it makes sense. By past RPGs’ standards, it’d be unthinkable, but I guess it wouldn’t be strange for linked events like that to happen in this game with its advanced NPC AI.

I am curious, but those two take priority here. I don’t have time to participate in this event.

“Sorry, but I have to meet someone here. I can’t go with you.”

“Meet someone? You mean another adventurer? If so, then everyone that was here is at the north wall. All adventurers are being forced to participate.”

A forced participation event?! Does that sort of thing even happen?! If everyone is participating, maybe Alexia and Irene are participating too? Maybe they went since I wasn’t there in time for the meeting.. Then, I’ll go over and find them!

“Alright, take me there.”