As the carriage came to a sudden halt, the chaos of Porthaven unfolded before them. The streets, once full of life, now teemed with panic. People scrambled to escape, their faces etched with terror. Goblins—green, twisted creatures—rampaged through the city, their guttural cries filling the air.
"Milady, let's go back to the Duke's mansion," Harold urged, his voice steady but laced with concern. "It's safe there. You and Princess Arabella will be protected."
But Beatrice, her gaze fixed on the carnage unfolding outside, shook her head with quiet resolve. "No. We're here already, at the gate."
Howard, ever the voice of reason, stepped forward, his brow furrowed. "But milady, your life is more important. We can't risk—"
Beatrice's cold, determined gaze met his. "The people are more important. What do you think Papa will say if he learns that we ran faster than the very people here who can't fight?" Her voice rang with a fierce clarity.
Howard hesitated, his lips tight with frustration, but he nodded. "As you say, milady."
Without another word, Howard and Harold reached for their weapons—Howard's bow with its sleek, deadly arrows, and Harold's long sword, which gleamed ominously in the dimming light. They were ready to fight, but the odds were against them.
At the massive gate, the sounds of clashing metal and the war cries of the goblins filled the air. A group of ten gate guards fought valiantly, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. Goblins surged forward like a tide of madness, pushing past the gate and into the city. Some had already breached the walls and were chasing down the panicked citizens, slaughtering them without mercy.
"Hold the line!" one of the guards shouted as he hacked away at the nearest goblin, his breath ragged. But the overwhelming number of goblins was too much. Their wild, frenzied attacks pushed the defenders back.
Beatrice clenched her fists. The sight of the guards struggling was unbearable. She couldn't turn away now. Not when so many lives hung in the balance.
"We need to help them," she said, her voice steady despite the chaos.
Howard and Harold exchanged a brief, knowing glance. Neither of them liked the idea of Beatrice in danger, but they understood her resolve.
"Get ready, milady," Harold said, drawing his sword with a smooth, practiced motion. "We fight."
And fight they did. With a battle cry, Harold charged forward, sword raised high. Howard took his place beside him, his bow aimed at the goblins nearest the gate. The air hummed with tension as the battle for Porthaven's survival began in earnest.
As Howard and Harold rushed to join the gate guards, Beatrice turned sharply toward Jack, her eyes blazing with urgency.
"Give me that rapier," she said, hand outstretched.
Jack blinked, caught off guard. "Huh? Oh—yeah, sure," he stammered, unfastening the sheath from his belt. "I… I can't really use that anyway. I don't know how to fight."
Beatrice took the weapon without hesitation, gripping it with the ease of someone who'd trained for moments like this. As she turned away, she shot a quick glance toward Arabella, who stood frozen beside the carriage, pale and wide-eyed.
"Just protect her," Beatrice said, her voice softer but firm. "No matter what."
Jack nodded, the weight of those words sinking into his chest like a stone. He tightened his grip on Arabella's arm as if that would somehow make him braver.
Then, with a sharp breath, Beatrice ran forward—rapier in hand—toward the chaos at the gate.
Steel clashed and goblins howled as chaos consumed the Porthaven gates.
Howard and Harold charged forward, their boots pounding the cobblestones. Ten gate guards fought desperately to hold the line, but they were faltering—badly outnumbered, bloodied, and surrounded.
Howard stopped just short of the front lines, his bow already drawn, fingers quick and steady. Harold surged ahead, long sword gleaming under the fading sun, eyes burning with fury.
"Left flank!" Howard shouted.
"I see it!" Harold answered, his voice calm—too calm for the chaos around him.
A goblin lunged at Harold with a jagged spear, snarling with bloodlust.
Shunk.
An arrow punched clean through its skull before it got within reach. It collapsed at Harold's feet, twitching once before going still.
"Thanks," Harold muttered, barely slowing down.
Howard didn't answer—another arrow was already nocked. His eyes flicked across the battlefield, calculating. Every shot he took landed exactly where it needed to: a throat, an eye, a kneecap that dropped a goblin to the ground before Harold's blade split it in two.
Harold moved like water, smooth and brutal. His blade carved through the enemy with terrifying grace. Goblins came at him in waves, but it didn't matter. He met each one with a clean, powerful strike—diagonal cuts that cleaved from shoulder to hip, sweeping slashes that sent bodies flying.
"Right! Two more!" Howard called out, loosing arrows without pause.
Thud. One goblin crumpled mid-sprint.
Harold pivoted on instinct and plunged his sword straight through the gut of the second.
Their movements were perfectly timed—Howard the watchful hawk above, Harold the thunder beneath. When a goblin tried to flank Harold from behind, Howard's arrow found its eye before it could raise a blade. When a goblin tried to leap for Howard on the cart, Harold was already there, slashing through its spine in one smooth, precise arc.
A bloodied gate guard stumbled, sword falling from his grip. A goblin raised a crude axe above him.
"Not today," Howard muttered.
Thwip.
The goblin dropped with an arrow between its eyes.
"You alright?" Harold barked at the guard, not breaking stride as he swept aside another attacker.
"Y-yeah," the guard gasped, looking at the two of them like they were gods from a storybook.
The tide began to shift. The guards, seeing Howard and Harold fighting like they were born to it, rallied. Confidence returned to their eyes, and they pushed forward with renewed strength.
"Push them back!" Harold roared. His blade gleamed red, and with a fierce battle cry, he led the charge.
Behind him, Howard covered every angle—silent, deadly, and unmissable.
Together, they were unstoppable.
Beatrice tightened her grip on the rapier Jack handed her, its elegant blade far thinner than the standard swords she was trained with. She gave it a quick swing—too light, too fast.
"This thing feels like a twig," she muttered under her breath.
Still, she had no time to complain.
A goblin shrieked and charged straight at her, axe raised.
Beatrice side-stepped quickly, her footwork sharp, and drove the rapier straight through its throat. The blade pierced like a needle, clean and efficient. The goblin gurgled and dropped.
Another came—then three more.
Beatrice gritted her teeth and moved like lightning.
Her strikes weren't the broad, heavy swings of a broadsword. These were precise, narrow lunges—stabs that slipped through gaps in armor and flesh. She was used to pushing back enemies with weight and force, but now, it was about speed and aim.
The first goblin came low—she dodged, then stabbed through its eye.
The second tried to grapple her—she spun, the rapier gliding across its throat in a thin red line.
The third leapt from behind, but she turned with a twist of her hip and impaled it mid-air.
The blade shimmered like silver thread in her hands, and Beatrice became a blur—dashing, slashing, stabbing. Her strikes were short and efficient, no wasted movement. Even struggling with the weapon's feel, she adapted with terrifying speed.
She moved like a flash of steel in the chaos, her long braid whipping behind her, eyes burning with fury and purpose.
Soon, the goblins inside Porthaven began to thin.
Howard and Harold continued cutting them down near the gates. Beatrice handled the ones that had broken through, saving townspeople who had been cornered or were too slow to flee. Her rapier dripped with green blood as she ran down the last of them, sliding her blade through its heart in one clean motion.
Then… silence.
The street was littered with goblin corpses. The air was thick with smoke, sweat, and blood. The ten gate guards—those still alive—were slumped against the walls, panting, wounded. Five of them had already broken away and were seen sprinting toward the Duke's mansion to report the attack, disappearing into the city.
Beatrice wiped her blade with a piece of cloth, breathing heavily. "Is that all of them?" she asked.
Howard lowered his bow. "Seems like it."
Harold nodded. "For now."
But then—
A terrible horn blasted through the trees beyond the gate.
It was deep, guttural, and cruel.
From the woods, more movement—too much. Dozens of green-skinned figures surged into view, hundreds maybe, their war cries echoing off the stone walls.
A second wave.
The guards still standing froze.
"Gods…" Harold muttered.
"We can't hold them," said Howard, voice tense. "Not like this."
The remaining guards raised their weapons shakily, but their wounds were too great. Their numbers too few.
And now—no one stood between the second horde and the heart of Porthaven.
Only Beatrice, Howard, Harold, and a few battered soldiers remained.
Beatrice's eyes flicked toward Jack, who was standing guard in front of Arabella, still gripping the dagger she'd given him earlier. Her mind raced. Then—like lightning—she remembered the camp. The explosion of light in the sky. That strange magic Jack had unleashed without even knowing how.
She ran to him, rapier still dripping goblin blood. "Jack!"
He flinched. "What—what did I do now?! I'm guarding her, I swear!"
"No, listen to me!" she said, grabbing his shoulders. "Remember at the camp? That light—whatever you did that scared the mage and blasted the sky? You need to do it again."
Jack blinked. "What, that thing? Beatrice, I don't even know what I did! I nearly passed out and thought I peed myself!"
"We have no choice!" Beatrice yelled. "Look at them!"
They both turned.
The second wave of goblins was charging—fifty, maybe more—green bodies and crude weapons, snarling, stomping, screaming. There were too many. The gate was open. The guards wouldn't last a second.
"Do something!" she shouted.
Jack groaned, tossing the dagger aside. "Fine, fine—I'll give it a shot!"
He stepped forward, planting his feet like he'd seen in an anime, holding out his arm dramatically toward the oncoming horde. "Alright. Deep breath. Channel the energy. Just like Dragon Ball. Kaaa… meee… haaa… meee…"
Beatrice stared at him like he was insane.
Jack ignored it. "HA!!!"
He thrust his arm forward.
Nothing happened.
Not even a spark.
"…Wave," Jack added weakly.
A few seconds passed. The goblins were still charging.
Jack looked at his empty hand, then down at his wrist like it owed him something. "Okay. Cool. I guess the magic's on a cooldown or something."
Beatrice gave him a look of absolute disbelief. "Are you serious right now!?"
He turned to her, arms still raised, eyes wide. "I swear it worked before! Maybe I need to be, like, super emotional? Or hungry? I was kinda starving that night—does magic run on snacks?!"
Behind them, Howard loosed another arrow and shouted, "Less talking, more blasting!"
"I'M TRYING!" Jack yelled back. "My magic's on vacation!"
Beatrice growled, grabbing her rapier again. "Fine. Then stall them until your magic decides to wake up."
Jack looked back at the horde. "Stall them? What do I look like, a wizard piñata?!"
Still—he stepped forward.
Even if he couldn't blast them yet, he had to try something.
The thunder of feet on dirt grew louder.
The earth trembled.
The shadows stretching from the trees darkened the gate as the goblin horde came into full view—and that's when they saw it. Their hearts sank.
It wasn't fifty.
It wasn't even a hundred.
It was an entire swarm.
Five hundred goblins.
Their screeches echoed like a storm of nightmares. Some crawled on all fours, others carried jagged blades, rusted axes, even makeshift catapults. And at the center, towering above the rest, were a few ogre-like creatures—heavily muscled and barely armored, drool spilling from their tusked mouths.
Beatrice stood frozen for a moment, her grip tightening on the rapier. She took a single step toward the gate, and then another.
Jack grabbed her arm. "Beatrice…?"
She didn't look at him. "Get back to the mansion," she said softly, voice almost calm. "Take Arabella with you."
"What?" Jack's eyes widened. "What do you wanna do? Be a hero? Stop them all? Is that what this is?! You can't! There's too many of them!"
He stepped in front of her, panicked, heart racing. "Let's retreat. Now. Please."
But she shook her head. "No. This is my calling, Jack."
Her voice was stronger now—firm, unwavering.
"I'm not some damsel in distress. I'm not a princess waiting for a knight in shining armor. I am the blade. I am the knight. And I'll fight for them—whether I stand alone or not."
Jack's hands balled into fists. "No! You'll come with me! You're not dying here!" His voice cracked. "Not you. Not now. I can't take this anymore, Bea!"
Beatrice turned, finally seeing the storm raging behind his eyes.
Jack's voice broke further. "Every time—every damn time—someone gets close to me, they die! I'm not doing that again. I won't lose you!"
The air between them grew still as her breath caught.
She reached out, gently placing her hands on his shoulders. "That's why we need you, Jack."
He blinked.
"We've seen what you can do. We felt it. That mana of yours… it's not ordinary. You're not ordinary."
Her hands trembled slightly, but her eyes—those sharp, sapphire-blue eyes—never faltered.
"I believe in you," she whispered. "We all do."
Jack stared at her. No jokes this time. No panic. Just silence—and the weight of her faith crashing into his chest.
Arabella, watching from behind, held her breath.
Jack looked at Beatrice's hands. Then her eyes.
Then he closed his own—and for the first time in his life, listened to what was inside him.
Something pulsed.
Jack closed his eyes.
There was nothing.
No spark. No energy surge. No glowing aura.
He gritted his teeth. Come on! Come on!!
He tried to feel the power again—the one that blasted into the sky back at the camp. But it wasn't there. Not even a flicker.
I can't do this, he thought. I'm not a hero. I'm just a guy who liked building robots and coding Python, Jave, C#, MATLAB, HDLs, Lisp and Pascal in his dorm.
Then it hit him.
Wait...
His breath slowed. The noise faded.
That's exactly who I am.
Jack opened his eyes—calm, clear, razor-focused.
He muttered under his breath, "Think, Jack. Think."
Images flashed in his mind: capacitor circuits. Remote signal control. Microwave frequency bursts. He remembered something he read once in a late-night rabbit hole on military tech: sound and frequency weapons. Directional energy. High-pitched signals that could burst eardrums, confuse enemies, even drop people to their knees.
Could I... could I build something like that... here?
His head snapped around. His eyes scanned the area near the gate.
A busted streetlamp. Torn carriage parts. A broken mana crystal lamp half-buried in rubble. Copper wires poking out from a snapped lantern post. A piece of metal from a shield lying near a fallen guard.
He sprinted toward the wreckage.
"Jack?!" Beatrice called. "What are you doing?!"
Jack didn't answer. He dropped to his knees and started yanking wires, muttering, "If I can create a basic resonator with mana acting as the core... I can run a frequency loop... use the crystal to amplify it..."
Howard blinked mid-draw of his bow. "What is he talking about?"
Harold just stared. "...Witchcraft?"
Jack took out a pocket knife he always kept—still clipped to his belt—and started carving and screwing pieces together. He snapped a crystal casing apart and shoved the exposed mana shard into the center.
Beatrice took a step closer. "Jack...?"
Jack stood.
What he held looked like a mess of wires, shards, metal bits, and gears—haphazardly thrown together. It pulsed with a faint blue glow.
"This is either going to save us," he said, "or blow my arm off."
He turned to the horde, planted his feet, and jammed the makeshift device into the dirt at an angle.
Then he flipped a switch made from a snapped copper ring.
A high-pitched hum exploded through the air.
The goblins, still charging, suddenly shrieked—clawing at their ears. They stumbled, crashed into each other, fell to the ground in waves.
Even the ogres staggered, growling and swiping at invisible forces in the air.
The device screamed with unstable magic-energy, distorting the air around it in rippling waves of sound and pressure.
Everyone else covered their ears—but Jack, standing behind it, grinned.
"That," he said, "is what we call crowd control, baby."
Beatrice stared at him, speechless.
Howard just whispered, "What is he?"
The piercing hum of Jack's makeshift resonator faded, the mana crystal inside flickering like it was on its last breath. Dozens of goblins were still on the ground, twitching and dazed—but Jack knew it wouldn't last. Already, the second half of the horde was regrouping.
He backed away slowly, muttering to himself, "Okay. That bought me a minute. One freakin' minute... now what?"
He reached into his coat pocket, fingers brushing against the only three things he had left: a broken smartwatch, a pair of wireless earbuds, and a small flash drive—one he always kept as a good luck charm.
And that's when his mind snapped into motion.
"Sound worked," he whispered. "Sound hurt them. Which means... sound can destroy them."
He dropped to his knees and started pulling apart his own earbuds. "Beatrice," he said without looking up, "I need your sword."
"What?!"
"Just give me the sword!"
Confused, she handed it over. Jack didn't even flinch—he yanked out the blade's mana core and held it up, eyes gleaming.
"Conductor. Boom. Perfect."
"Conductor?" Howard repeated.
"Everyone stand back!" Jack barked, voice sharper than they'd ever heard it. "This isn't magic. This is SCIENCE."
He stabbed the core into the ground and shoved the broken smartwatch next to it. Then he attached the earbuds' coil to the metal shaft, using the flash drive as a makeshift capacitor. He grabbed some leftover copper wiring from his earlier rig and began creating a closed loop, drawing a symbol in the dirt with the blade—a circle with three slashes.
"Wh-what's he building now?" Harold asked, stepping closer.
"I don't know," Beatrice said, breathless. "But look at his eyes."
Jack was a blur. Sweat pouring down his face, lips moving faster than anyone could understand.
"Mana is energy. Mana is vibration. If I build a recursive amplifier loop with the natural frequency of the mana crystal—then spike it with a delay echo at 22 Hz—it'll create a mana detonation wave. A subsonic mana-bomb. Basically... a mana-nuke, Jack style."
Harold's jaw dropped. "He's making a bomb?!"
Jack stood up, took a step back, and looked at the swirling contraption. It was humming low and fast. Unstable.
He whispered, "Here's hoping this world doesn't have OSHA regulations."
Then he grabbed a nearby guard's broken dagger and scratched something into the core.
Beatrice stepped closer. "What... what are you writing?"
Jack didn't look at her. "A failsafe."
She saw it—three small letters, etched into the side of the device:
RUN
Jack turned to the group. "When I say go—you run back to the mansion. No questions. No hero speeches. No standing behind. RUN."
"But what about you?" she asked.
He gave her a sideways grin. "I built it. I know how much time I have."
The ground began to rumble. The horde was charging again, shaking off the earlier blast.
Beatrice's eyes widened. "They're coming."
Jack clenched his fists and stepped back toward his creation. His voice was calm. Flat.
"Let's see how these bastards like modern tech."
He grabbed a wire and yanked it loose.
The hum became a scream.
The air shook. The device glowed bright blue, then white, then burned gold.
Jack turned his head slightly. "Go."
No one moved.
"GO!"
Finally, they ran—Beatrice hesitating the longest before sprinting after the others.
Jack knelt beside his device. The humming reached a crescendo—oscillating with the same pitch as the resonator before. But now it was weaponized.
The goblins burst through the trees like a wave of nightmares.
And Jack smiled.
"Time to crash your system."
Then he slammed his palm on the flash drive.
The world exploded in light and sound.
The light burst across Porthaven like a miniature sun exploding just outside the gate. A thunderous shockwave rolled through the city, shattering windows, shaking rooftops, and blowing dirt and ash into the air. The sky above flickered with mana sparks—bright blue veins that danced like lightning, crawling through the clouds.
And then… came the sound.
A low, pulsing vibration rippled outward. Not like thunder. Not like magic. It was different—alien. The kind of sound that didn't just strike your ears. It crawled into your bones. Even the trees bent away from it. The grass wilted. Birds in the sky dropped mid-flight.
The goblins had been only moments from the gate—snarling, screaming, hundreds of them clawing over one another like a tidal wave of death.
But when the pulse hit them—
They dropped. All at once.
Some clutched their heads, shrieking. Others collapsed with blood pouring from their ears, their twisted bodies twitching violently. Their crude weapons fell from their hands like they no longer knew how to hold them. It was as if their minds had been erased in an instant—wiped clean by a force they couldn't understand.
One by one, two by two, ten by ten—until the whole field was littered with lifeless, smoking goblin corpses. The mana still sparking over their skin like static electricity. Then silence.
No more roars.
No more pounding feet.
Just… silence.
---
From afar, the group watched in horror and awe.
Beatrice stepped forward, shielding her eyes from the blinding haze. "Jack…?"
The device had burned itself into the ground. A smoking crater sat where the bomb had gone off, pulsing faintly with dying light. And lying in the center of it all, covered in soot, hair singed, clothes torn at the sleeves—
Was Jack.
Still breathing.
Barely.
Howard was the first to run toward him, with Harold close behind. Beatrice was frozen for a second, then bolted after them.
"Jack!" she cried.
He groaned, lifting one hand lazily toward the sky. "Okay... note to self… next time… maybe less boom…"
Beatrice fell to her knees beside him. "You idiot! You could've died!"
"I almost did," he muttered, coughing. "But don't worry. I wore my seatbelt."
Howard blinked. "What's a seatbelt?"
Harold just laughed, shaking his head. "He did it. The whole damn horde…"
Beatrice was still staring at him—eyes wide, jaw clenched. "You… saved us."
Jack cracked a small smile. "Nah… just used what I had. I'm no hero. Just a nerd with a death wish and a flash drive."
He tried to sit up and winced.
Beatrice caught him gently. "Rest. You've done enough."
The others gathered around, guards peeking from behind rubble, villagers coming out of hiding, staring at the field of goblin corpses in disbelief. Some even started cheering. Others dropped to their knees in tears.
In that moment, Jack wasn't just a stranger from another world.
He was their savior.
And Porthaven… was still standing.