Chapter 29
The age-old cliché in which races that were once at odds temporarily unite to subjugate the Demon King.
Usually, when people call something cliché, they mean it's a flavor they've had so many times it feels commonplace.
In other words.
Because it's such a widely known setup, it may not be gourmet, but it's like a seasoning that can still draw out a wonderfully stable flavor.
But simply imitating clichés isn't enough to succeed.
Faced with such a crisis.
Author Ulysses made a tremendously bold choice.
Normally, in a situation like this, the standard move would be to have the protagonist dramatically resolve the crisis with his own exploits.
- Boncho, don't be so angry. The traitors probably don't even know that Lord Guan is a mounted archer. So why not at least give him a chance?
And, while subtly boosting the neighboring spin-off protagonist's judgment of character.
He gave his sworn brother a story of his own.
And he did it while the coalition's most famed warriors were all going out and getting slaughtered.
Guan Yu rode in on horseback like a tiger, kicked Hua Xiong in the chest, slapped him across the face, and cleanly beheaded him.
That day, not only Estia but everyone else realized you could get drunk without drinking a drop.
People got their Guan Yu hype from the Green Dragon Crescent Blade, and everyone drunk on that Guan Yu mania went wild.
Of course.
"Hmm……."
"No matter how benevolent and gifted at reading people that setup is, isn't this making Liu Bei too much of a background character?"
"Setting aside the high elf part, hmm, honestly it might be more convincing to treat the protagonist as Guan Yu."
The hearts of people accustomed to the grammar of serialized fiction were left with a strange sense of disappointment.
But.
In the first place, when the weakest of the Four Heavenly Kings is taken down, the next one to appear on stage is basic genre logic.
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"Today is the perfect chance to snuff out the traitor Dong Zhuo! All troops, full assault!"
At the coalition commander Yuan Shao's booming order,
the cheers and drumbeats of tens of thousands of men burst forth, shaking the earth.
Since even the great general Hua Xiong had already died, nothing seemed capable of standing in their way.
The massive wave of soldiers surged forward as if it would swallow Hulao Pass's especially pitiful-looking walls in one gulp.
But.
Just then.
All noise fell silent as if it had been a lie.
Even the thunderous drumbeats.
Even the roars that seemed able to topple Mount Tai.
Even the rough breathing of the soldiers.
The gate of Hulao Pass slowly opened with a heavy groan.
And then.
From within that dark, bottomless abyss.
Only one man emerged, not countless troops.
The two long pheasant feathers fixed to his helmet fluttered in the wind.
And at the sight of the man arriving atop a massive warhorse covered from head to toe in blazing, flame-colored fur,
everyone instinctively realized.
That man was the strongest warrior Dong Zhuo trusted.
"Lü Bu Fengxian stands here. You rabble—who dares take on my Sky Piercer Halberd?"
The strongest man under heaven, a man almost like a war god.
He raised his Sky Piercer Halberd and pointed it at the coalition's banners.
A single simple motion made heaven and earth hold their breath.
They could only think of one thing instinctively.
Among men, Lü Bu.
Among horses, Red Hare.
The fear that had merely been vague rumor finally materialized before Hulao Pass.
"Lü Bu! I'll strip that false reputation right off you!"
In the midst of it, there was one brave man: Fang Yue, a subordinate of Wang Kuang.
But.
"Kheh──"
In the instant their mounts crossed paths.
Fang Yue was pinned to the Sky Piercer Halberd and met his end without even being able to leave a dying declaration.
And then after that.
Mu Shun, a subordinate of Zhang Yang, died.
Wu Anguo, a subordinate of Kong Rong, barely survived and fled with one arm cut off.
"Fine, I'll do it myself!"
Thinking that if things went on like this the coalition would be utterly scattered and ruined by a single man, the White Horse General Gongsun Zan could no longer hold back his anger and charged in.
"The terror of the non-Han tribes? So it was all just nonsense."
"Khh……!"
Even Gongsun Zan was no match for Lü Bu.
At this rate, one of the Eighteen Lords would become another irretrievable victim of Lü Bu, and the situation was dire.
"Hey! You bastard with three fathers!"
"……Which bastard?"
There was a hero who charged in on horseback, alone and determined.
It was Zhang Fei, who had inwardly regretted that he hadn't been able to earn any military merit.
(To be continued.)
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Lü Bu's name had already been indirectly mentioned over and over before, through description and sometimes in conversations between characters.
Things like, "Dong Zhuo can be so overbearing only because of Lü Bu," "once Lü Bu appears, who can possibly oppose him?," and "Lü Bu still hasn't shown up yet, so stay on alert."
But because of the genre constraints of novels, no matter how many sentences were devoted to him, it wasn't easy to properly bring out his presence.
So.
Kim Yul once again used a cheat code.
A Red Hare so extraordinary you couldn't tell whether it was a horse, a tiger, or one of the mythical beasts from legend.
And on top of it, an illustration of Lü Bu, proudly sporting locust-like antennae, with a face that looked like it could slaughter three fathers just by looking at them.
People were convinced in an instant.
Even in modern times, rather than painstakingly describing a heroine's appearance, slipping in a single illustration is far more efficient, and isekai naturally achieve a similar effect.
Then came Zhang Fei's provocative shout.
And that incredible cliffhanger-cutting strike.
"Krrr! To cut it off here!"
"Ulysses, he's a demon!"
"This is against the code!"
The anger of the people mired in despair reached the heavens.
.
.
.
And so, a day later.
"Hurry, hurry, hand it over!"
As the dragon's roar burst from the newspaper stand, people rushed ahead of one another to buy the Truth Daily.
Today, too, Cao Cao was once again going on and on about some insanely complicated, deeply meaningful political topic without even mentioning Hulao Pass, so they skimmed it lightly and moved on.
They saw it.
- You ditched the Lü clan's father, ditched Ding Yuan's father, and now you've cozied up to Dong Zhuo! Did you even give him your ass, you bastard!
- Bastard! Hand over your head!
- You bastard, and you think you can use that much strength!
- Shut up! You bastard who's about to have four fathers!
The dwarf Zhang Fei's furnace-hot barrage of fiery father-insults.
Though the heavy mood seemed to lighten somewhat, Zhang Fei's Serpent Spear still couldn't beat Lü Bu's Sky Piercer Halberd.
They remembered.
The textbook formula of countless hero stories.
When a hero protagonist gets stronger, they usually go through an awakening event.
Just look at works from Earth.
There was even the heartless Saiyan example of watching his bald friend get beaten and shouting "Crit──!" while judging it a critical hit.
There was also the head of a corrupt old clan, cold-blooded enough to cut down promising sprouts wholesale under the guise of a selection exam, yet who still once dreamed of an explosion ending together with the final boss.
There was also a mustachioed plumber who tossed his beloved mount away like a worn-out shoe and leapt using that momentum just to score a little higher.
Even in isekai, that cliché was used pretty widely.
Could the three fathers have been foreshadowing?
Would Liu Bei awaken upon Zhang Fei's death, as he had when the other two fathers died?
Thump-thump!
Rustle-rustle!
Because the newspaper section happened to end exactly where Zhang Fei was being cornered, everyone swallowed hard and turned the page.
And then.
"Krrr……!"
"This is brotherhood!"
"Damn it, I knew I could trust you!"
"Lord Guan! You already warmed up the wine again this time, didn't you!"
Though jumping into a one-on-one duel like that isn't exactly a pretty sight.
But if it's out of affection for your younger brother, that's exactly how it should be!
With Guan Yu's interruption, everyone once again stacked up another layer of Guan Yu hype.
By now, he had so much charm that even if Guan Yu let out a girlish scream, they could probably close one eye and let it slide once.
And that wasn't the end of it.
- Brothers! I'll join in too!
At last.
The novel's protagonist.
The high elf wielding twin swords joined the battle, and the moment Lü Bu, having lost the initiative, broke into retreat,
everyone put down their newspapers and burst into seal-clapping at the "protagonist hiding his strength" development.
The development in which the overwhelmingly powerful force, said to be invincible under heaven and almost ghostlike in its might, was driven back by the Peach Brothers, who still hadn't even properly made a name for themselves yet.
Along with the instinct to cheer for the underdog, a refreshing soda-like catharsis overflowed in their chests.
* * *
…….
Kim Yul was having a wildly spectacular day.
- Ahem! How do you like that!
From the morning, he had met Estia, with a shabby beard glued to the chin and a fake Green Dragon Crescent Blade decked all over with jewels that looked expensive at a glance.
- Uh, sorry for the intrusive question, but the thing you're serializing... is it perhaps a gay romance?
He endured Roselyn's roundabout heresy interrogation, in which she twisted a brotherly bond so close they could share a bed into some Marine Corps nonsense.
[Op-ed: Two Heroes, how does their martial ranking compare?]
[In the recently popular series 'Two Heroes,' countless warriors appear. Judging from the chapters serialized so far, this reporter personally interviewed the Empire's Sword Master and…….
……judging even from the recently serialized chapters, wielding twin blades nimbly on horseback without the slightest wobble is said to be difficult even for a well-trained Sword Expert, so Liu Bei's true skill is at least on par with a Sword Master…….]
"Hmm……."
Kim Yul barely managed to suppress the headache brought on by the already-emerging theory that Liu Bei was the Overlord.
That much was fine.
"So, in this lady's opinion, the current direction is a little ambiguous. I think we need to approach this in a way that highlights the greatness of high elves a little more. Also, after carefully reviewing all of this lady's previous works, there are far too many deaths. That's not a development that fits with pacifism──"
Chloe von Wispelaud.
The de facto owner of the Truth Daily, and the eldest daughter and heiress of the Wispelaud ducal house.
She thrust a roughly 30-page book report, along with a proposal for future developments, at Kim Yul.
At this full-scale attempt by the living power to pull the strings.
Kim Yul's head started spinning a little.