High school student Ren Arisato falls into a world that looks like a warzone — still wearing his uniform. But he doesn't panic. He can open an admin menu. In front of trembling villagers, he casually spawns legendary divine items, mutters that he just wants a quiet life, and walks off.
Lyra, the village herbalist, becomes his guide against her better judgment. A cat-eared girl named Kiki appoints herself his official witness and sells stories about his nonsense for high prices.
When a demon ho
Do Not Bend the Knee - The Silent Purge: The Morning 12,000 Soldiers Vanished
The air before dawn was cold, biting at the skin.
In a hut on a hill at the edge of Carve village, Arisato Ren, who had been asleep, was awakened by a strange sound echoing from afar.
Rumble... rumble...
The ground was trembling faintly.
"...Again?"
He pulled the blanket back over himself. His heartbeat was loud. No, this wasn't his heart. It was the sound of something—many somethings—marching in unison, approaching this hill.
Someone pounded violently on the hut's door.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Ren! Are you sleeping?! Get up, hurry!!"
Lyra Fernell stood there, her long ash-brown braid disheveled, her green eyes opened wide. The freckles along the bridge of her nose looked pale with fear. The herb pouch at her waist swayed along with her trembling.
"The village... the village is surrounded! Soldiers! And the numbers are insane! There are tens of thousands of them!"
Ren slowly sat up.
"Oh, yeah?"
"'Oh, yeah?' Is that all you can say?! Did you see outside? Did you see the flags? Those are Belkhain, Filcena, and Travas! It's a coalition army of the Three Kingdoms! They're surrounding... surrounding YOU!"
From the window of Ren's hut, only the dark plain before dawn stretched out. But upon that black earth, countless torchlights flickered and swayed, as if stars had fallen to the ground.
Not one, not two. Not a thousand, not two thousand.
Twelve thousand.
A coalition army, secretly formed by the Three Kingdoms. Every single soldier was now surrounding this small village to capture Arisato Ren.
"You know, right? A while back, the kings sent gifts and marriage proposals, and you ignored all of them. Because of that, the kings decided 'negotiations have broken down.' So now they're trying to take you by force...!"
"Huh. What a pain."
"'What a pain' isn't the response! Do you understand? Right now, this village is in a situation where it could be burned to the ground as 'rebels against God,' just as written in the holy scriptures of the Filcena Theocracy! We have to run! At least you have to run!"
That was when it happened.
A man's voice boomed from outside the hut.
Magically amplified, painfully loud.
"Arisato Ren! Can you hear me! I am Marquis Gardna, Commander of the Three Kingdoms Coalition Army!"
Ren looked out the window.
At the bottom of the hill, at the head of the torchlit ranks, stood a large man in armor. He had a gray mustache and wore an overly ornate sword at his hip. This man appeared to be the commander of the invading army.
"I address you, holed up in that hut! Hand over the holy weapon to us and place yourself under the command of the Belkhain Kingdom! If you do, we shall spare your life. However, if you refuse our demands—"
The commander paused theatrically, then declared:
"We will burn this village of Carve—all three hundred fifty souls—not a single one left alive!"
Screams rose from throughout the village.
"No way!?"
"Help us! We have nothing to do with this!"
"M-Mommy...!"
At that moment, the messenger soldier beside the commander lit a fire arrow. The archers drew their bowstrings in unison. The commander was serious. There wasn't a shred of hesitation in him.
"Hurry up! Depending on your answer, we'll start by burning that tavern over there!"
Garof, the owner of the "Crooked Corner Inn," gripped his cane in front of his shop. The village chief, Doma, stood frozen in front of his stone house.
Ren, even so, stifled a yawn.
"...I don't really care, but don't burn my hut. I'll have nowhere to sleep."
Lyra glared at Ren as if looking at something unbelievable.
"You—in this situation—! Fine, I understand. I'll go. I'll negotiate. You... you absolutely must not leave the hut."
"Huh? Where are you going?"
"That's obvious. I'm going to talk to that commander. My patients, my friends—everyone lives in this village. I can't let it be burned."
With that, Lyra ran down the hill without waiting for Ren's reply.
Ren watched her back, dazed.
(What a troublesome woman, seriously.)
He thought that to himself.
But the next moment.
Ren saw her surrounded by soldiers.
Lyra stood before the commander. The scent of medicinal herbs dissolved into the cold pre-dawn air.
"Please stop, Commander! This village has no intention of fighting you! Arisato Ren just wants to live quietly! Please, please withdraw your troops!"
Marquis Gardna raised the corner of his mouth as if thoroughly amused.
"Live quietly? With that power? Don't make me laugh. He is the greatest threat to our Three Kingdoms—a force that could trample us all. Do you think a little girl like you could possibly understand that man's true intentions?"
"But it's the truth! He drove back the Demon King! He repelled the night raids! So why are you aiming fire arrows at him?! You're the ones who should be worried about angering a truly holy being!"
Lyra's voice did not waver.
She stared straight into the commander's eyes with those green eyes of hers.
The smile vanished from the commander's face.
"Insolent. Seize her."
Lyra's arms were twisted behind her back, and she was shoved to the ground.
"Let go! Let go of me! If we just talk, you'll understand—kyaa!"
A soldier bound Lyra's mouth with rough rope. Her ash-brown hair scattered across the ground. Her slender shoulders were forcibly pressed against the cobblestones.
"Nngh...!"
Her muffled voice vanished into the pre-dawn air.
"That should quiet her down. Now then, Arisato Ren! Did you see that! Your herbalist is our prisoner! If you don't come out quietly, we'll hang this woman's head in the village square!"
The commander's voice echoed throughout the village.
At that moment.
The air in the hut on the hill changed.
Ren opened his eyes.
It wasn't his usual half-lidded, sleepy face.
His eyes were quietly, coldly, directly fixed on the commander.
"...That guy. What did he just do to Lyra?"
His voice was exactly the same as his usual lackadaisical tone.
But precisely because of that.
A chill ran down the spine, terrifyingly cold.
For the first time in this world, Arisato Ren became aware of genuine anger.
He was angry.
Unreasonable, arrogant, trampling on his quiet life—and on top of that, shoving a meddlesome but harmless herbalist to the ground and binding her with rope.
That fact began to burn quietly, deeply, darkly, in the depths of Ren's chest.
His expression was as still as ice.
Without a word, Ren extended one hand forward.
A pale light.
A transparent panel floated up above his hand, softly.
The Administrator Menu.
A divine box that allowed the deepest intervention into this world's system.
Ren's fingers ran across the light without hesitation.
/teleport @Lyra
He entered the command.
Sent.
The next moment.
Lyra Fernell's body vanished from the soldiers' grasp.
As if no one had ever been there from the start.
"She disap... peared!?"
The soldiers stood stunned, still gripping the rope.
"Wh-what was that just now!"
"That woman, where did she—!"
The soldiers erupted into chaos.
At that moment, light converged beside Ren on the hill, and Lyra's form appeared.
"—Eh!? Why!? I was just—"
Lyra noticed that the rough rope that should have been on her wrists was gone, and that she was now on a hill far from where she had just been standing. She was speechless.
"...That guy. He tied your mouth, didn't he."
Ren looked at Lyra's face.
Faint red rope marks remained around her mouth. There was dirt on her cheek, probably from being scraped when she was pushed down.
Without a word, Ren wiped the dirt from Lyra's cheek with his thumb.
Lyra's shoulders trembled at the sudden gesture.
"R-Ren...?"
"Get inside."
"But—!"
"Get inside."
The second time, his tone brooked no argument.
Lyra closed her mouth, which had been about to protest, and nodded.
After ushering Lyra into the hut, Ren opened the Administrator Menu once more.
This time, he generated an item.
"Gem that deploys a protective field"
As he pictured the name in his mind, a small gem shining with seven colors materialized before Ren's eyes.
It was a legendary-grade defensive item that absolutely could not exist on Earth. It nullified all attacks within its range and refused entry to anyone not permitted.
Ren tossed the gem onto the roof of the hut.
—In that instant.
Fwoooosh...!!
A transparent dome-shaped field enveloped the entirety of Carve village and Ren's hut.
The curtain of light looked like thin glass, yet its surface was filled with an invisible, overwhelming power.
"What is that light!?"
The commander shouted. The soldiers buzzed with unease.
With that scene behind him, Ren slowly walked out of the field.
To the village entrance, before the commander.
Twelve thousand soldiers held their breath, staring at a single high school student.
Ren, still looking sleepy, extended his right hand to the side.
"...Sword."
With that single word.
A sword appeared in Ren's hand.
Sheath and all, without a sound.
Golden hilt. Silver-white sheath. The blade was not yet visible. Even so, an overwhelming divinity radiated from the entire sword, enough to steal one's breath.
The legendary holy sword.
A sword for the protector of humanity, positioned at the pinnacle of the divine item hierarchy.
Ren stabbed the holy sword into the ground with one hand.
Thunk.
Then he opened the Administrator Menu and applied a "modification" to the sword.
"—I've set it so that only those worthy of gripping it can draw it. And by the way, every single person who attacked this village just now? Unworthy."
With just that, Ren drew the holy sword from its sheath.
The morning sun glinted off the blade.
Just seeing that light made the soldiers in the front ranks collapse, their legs giving out.
Ren walked over to a large nearby boulder and casually thrust the holy sword into its center.
CRAAASH!!
The boulder shattered.
Yet the holy sword remained firmly rooted deep within the rock, as if it had been there from the very beginning.
"Now then. You people gave me an order. 'Hand over the holy weapon.' ...So go ahead and pull it out yourselves. Whoever can draw that thing is the 'savior' you're looking for, right? Until you find them, don't ever involve me again."
Ren's words were quiet.
But that quietness seized the hearts of twelve thousand soldiers in an iron grip.
"...I just want to live quietly."
Leaving only those words behind, Ren returned inside the field.
————
"It won't budge..."
One soldier touched the holy sword.
Crackle—blue sparks scattered, and the soldier's body was hurled backward.
"GYAAAAAA!!"
"Wh-what was that! He was repelled!"
"I'll try too!"
"Out of my way! I'm first!"
The soldiers swarmed toward the holy sword, each trying to be first.
But every single person who touched it was repelled without exception.
The sword did not move in the slightest.
As if the boulder itself were the sword's true body.
"Move! All of you, get out of my way!"
Marquis Gardna pushed through the soldiers and stepped forward.
"I am the one worthy of being chosen by the holy sword! Move aside, you cowards!"
The commander threw off his helmet and gripped the holy sword's hilt with both hands.
"Nnnnngggghhh...!!!"
His face turned bright red. Veins bulged. His teeth ground together.
"It won't... come out...!! Nnnggggoooohhh!!!"
At that moment.
Sssss...!
White smoke rose from the commander's hands.
"Hot!? Aah...! A-a-aaaaaaahhh!!! My hands! My haaands!!!"
The heat emitted by the holy sword.
It mercilessly burned the hands of the unworthy.
The stench of searing flesh. The skin of his palms adhered to the sword's hilt.
"I can't let go! I can't pull away! Giiiiii!!!"
CRACK!!
The holy sword released an intense burst of light.
The commander's massive body was blown high into the air.
"Gyaaaaaaaah!?"
THUD!!
The sound of him slamming into the ground.
The commander clutched his charred hands to his chest, convulsing, foaming at the mouth, and lost consciousness.
"C
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