As she felt the vibrations in her sword from the latest clash of the weapons, Kim gritted her teeth. Her opponent was strong, and clearly was more of a threat than she had first thought, but that didn't mean she was going to give up. It just meant that she was going to need to come up with another way to defeat her opponent.
She'd already tried her Combat Dance, but all she had managed was to was avoid a few close calls. Whoever her opponent was he wasn't an average swordsman. He was a threat Kim couldn't help but be glad she was facing now rather than later.
If she had found herself facing this opponent when they were fighting to keep the king from being killed, she was sure that she'd have been distracted enough that she'd have allowed this person's blade past her guard. Even once would be too many times, as she had no idea how bad just one strike would be. It might not be worse than a small cut or it could be the end of her life. The only way to know was to see what happened if it managed to do that, but she couldn't afford to find out.
Kim swung her sword again, wondering if all that she'd been through to this point was going to end up being for nothing. She recognized that her own strength was failing. Maybe if she hadn't used so many of her skills on the other opponents, then she wouldn't be so tired now, not that she felt any regret at that fact. As she'd only used her skill as she felt the need to.
However, she thought she saw something that might lead to a weakness in her opponent's guard. Yet, she couldn't be sure. She could only hope that what she thought she saw would appear again, letting her know if she wasn't imagining things.
She wouldn't be surprised if she was. This was a more intense fight than she'd had to fight before. Even against the hobgoblins whose armor she was now wearing wasn't nearly as difficult as this opponent, and that was with all the other goblins coming in to assist it. As such, she was sure that she had to win this fight. If only to prove to her own doubts that they were wrong and she wasn't as weak as she had once been, back in her early teens.
Feeling a burst of energy having thought about her earlier life, she renewed her assault on her opponent's defenses, swinging her sword, driving him back. Then almost as if her determination had summoned what she had thought she'd seen before again, she saw it. A clear opening that she could strike at, if her sword wasn't preoccupied at the moment.
However, as she pressed her attack she suddenly remembered about her short sword as she felt its hilt brush against her left arm, that she held out to her side for balance. So, she gripped her short sword tightly, while waiting patiently for the opening to arrive again.
She didn't know how long this fight had taken already, but she forced herself to continue, even as she felt her arm screaming in pain as it was being pushed past its limits. Her arm having never been put under such pressure before.
She assumed that her opponent was tiring out as well, but she couldn't see any signs of it. Not that she really expected to. She did everything she could to keep her opponent from learning that she was nearing the last leg of her endurance and was already past her liimit.
Suddenly, she saw the opening again, and readied her sword. She was confident that she would only get one chance at this. She closed her eyes and used an Iai Cut with her short sword.
The strike went of without a hitch and she felt confident that her opponent hadn't even been aware he'd been hit. She just had to hope that her strike was more fatal than it appeared at the moment.
She could see the blood from the wound starting to appear along his stomach, but it didn't seem as big of an issue as she'd hoped. Yet, she still pushed herself. He figured she would regret how hard she pushed herself in the morning, but at least she'd be alive in order to regret it in the first place.
However, as she felt herself begin to feel her legs start to give out from under her, she finally saw what she had been hoping to see. Her opponent was slowing down significantly. Not only that, but the blood from the wound was intensifying,
Then as her opponent stumbled, she knew her victory was at hand, but she had to be cautious to make sure that she wasn't walking into a trap. Yet, she also couldn't let this last much longer. As such, she swung with her short sword, as she twirled around in the same direction as her swing, to run her bastard sword through her opponent's back, severing the spinal cord, having used the momentum of her swing to add to the force of her actual strike.
After she accomplished that, the only step she still felt was left to take was to pull her blade out of her opponent and clean it off. Although, she got as far as pulling her blade out of the dead body before the adrenaline running through her body wore off and she couldn't do anything but collapse on the ground, completely exhausted.
She could only watch helplessly as Elin ran over, a look of panic on her face. Then of course, Jonas was following, although his expression wasn't nearly as clear, but Elin did tend to be more expressive. One thing that Kim felt made Elin more endearing.
"Kim! Kim, are you okay?" Elin cried as she knelt down by Kim without even slowing down from her run over.
"Just tired," Kim replied softly as she closed her eyes. "I'll just need time to rest and I'll be okay."
"Assess!" Kim hear cry, panic still ringing in her voice. Then Kim felt Jonas picking her up as Elin was quiet. Which Kim could only assume meant that she was looking over what her spell was telling her about Kim's condition.
"So? What's it say?" Jonas asked, as Kim felt herself being carried to the side of the road.
"Her stamina is all gone and she isn't injured," Elin said, relief evident in her voice.
"Well, I guess we'll just rest here, but you should go get some firewood. I'll check our assailants to see if we can learn anything from them," Jonas told Elin.
"Should we leave them here by themselves?" Elin asked, the worry in her voice made Kim want to laugh, but she could only manage a weak chuckle.
"Don't worry, I'll be close enough to keep an eye on them in case something happens," Jonas assured Elin.
Kim wanted so say something to reassure Elin as well, but she couldn't think of anything better than what Jonas had said. Besides, she wasn't sure she could say it loud enough for Elin to hear, nor did she have the energy to even order her thoughts quickly.
She felt almost like it was a monumental task to just keep her thoughts straight rather than jumbled up so much that they didn't even make sense to her. Although, she didn't mind have some time to relax. If this could be called relaxing.
Kim closed her eyes and tried to let herself drift off to sleep, listening to the sounds of Elin and Jonas moving around nearby, but no matter how tired she was or how she tried to get herself to fall asleep, she just couldn't help but stay awake. She'd never had this problem before, so she couldn't say what it was or why it was happening. Yet at the same time, she felt like she shouldn't be too surprised. She'd slept well the night before, and she was this worn out simply because the fight went on so long and she had to use so many of her skills that just kept costing stamina.
While she wasn't happy about things turning out this way, she wondered if she should try to get Elin to let her use her lap as a pillow. She'd never done that before, and while she was worn out to this point, she started imagining doing that.
She doubted Elin would mind, though she couldn't say if Elin would be willing to do that, although she didn't think that Elin would object. It just seemed like she might not like doing that while Jonas and Elmo could see, but Kim certainly didn't care about that. After all, it wasn't like they'd be doing something that shouldn't be seen by the public.
As the images of how she pictured how it would look to be able to rest her head on Elin's lap, she lost track of time. What snapped her back to reality was when Elin dropped off the firewood that she'd collected.
There wasn't that much, but it was still a sizeable amount. To Kim, it looked like it would be enough for them to get through cooking dinner and at least part of the way through the night.
Yet, it seemed like Elin thought it wasn't enough, as she left again. Kim assumed she was going to pick up more firewood, but couldn't be sure. Elin looked a little dazed as she walked away, which Kim wondered if it was because of how Elmo and Kim were pretty much useless at the moment.
Kim noticed Elmo was awake, but didn't seem to be doing anything. He merely started at the dead bodies of the people who had attacked them, a conflicted expression on his face. Kim could only assume that he'd never had to actually fight another person before. Not only that, but also that he was very much a city kid, one who had in his mind how the world was supposed to work, of how he shouldn't kill other people, even if his own survival depended on it.
Kim couldn't help but wonder what this kind of situation would affect him. Especially since he was the only one who had reacted that way.