by Aneko Yusagi
To top it all off, Nadia had the nerve to use my cloak, of all things, to shield herself from the force of the explosion.
“Ugh . . . You’re so strong . . .”
Seriously! For a single person to be this strong, surely they would have to be some kind of monster, right?
And then, finally, someone threw a couple of robes into the arena as support for Raphtalia and Filo.
“What is this? I see! Fi—Humming! Put this on! It will nullify the lightning!”
“Woooow! Neeeaaat!”
Raphtalia and Filo threw on the robes that had been tossed into the arena.
“Little Rock, you can’t just keep hanging all over me like this, you know? Don’t you think you should approach our relationship a bit more strategically?”
“Shut up! I don’t have time for that kind of thing!”
Luckily, she no longer had a weapon, as far as I could tell. This was a chance I wasn’t going to pass up.
“Aww, that’s too bad. In that case, I guess I’ll make the first move.”
Once again, Nadia seized the chance to begin casting magic while Raphtalia and Filo were busy putting on the robes. Damn! Was there nothing I could do to stop her? The woman never really made much of an attempt to attack me, but even if she had, my counterattacks were pretty limited.
The Demon Dragon Shield had a counterattack effect called “C demon bullet,” but it didn’t seem like it would have much of an effect on Nadia. I don’t know if it was because it was categorized as a counterattack, but her Thunder Guard didn’t trigger it at all. I guess being able to counterattack counterattacks would just make things too easy.
At last, it looked like Nadia had finally decided to focus her attacks on me, perhaps because I was restricting her movement. I was sure it would just be some ranged magic attack. In that case, I would just surround us with shields and have them all fire off counterattacks at once.
Nadia began brazenly chanting her incantation.
“Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dritte Shield! Shield Prison! Change Shield!”
“As the source of your power, I command you! Let the true way be revealed once more! Lightning! Paralyze those before me!”
“Drifa Paralyzing Thunder!”
Wha?! She had cast a status effect-type spell that wouldn’t register as aggressive! I had completely miscalculated her intentions! I’d changed my shields expecting to produce a counterattack, but they showed absolutely no response.
“Ugh . . .”
The powerful paralysis magic loosened my grip on Nadia slightly.
“Oh! Impressive! That would have paralyzed a normal opponent and rendered them completely immobile, you know.”
While she was talking, Nadia took advantage of the tiny opening I had shown to escape from my grasp and put some distance between us.
“I’ve had to grow tough to survive.”
Thankfully I had increased my resistance to status effects. I’d figured I would never know what to expect in the underground coliseum, but . . . man, this fight was tough. Regardless of any differences in our stats, this Nadia woman was a ridiculously capable fighter. If we hadn’t been affected by the curse, winning wouldn’t have been a problem, but it still would’ve taken more than just brute force, most likely. She wasn’t the type of opponent that you could beat with lower or even equal stats.
Even so, it didn’t make sense that we were having this hard a time. There had to be something else going on. It made me wonder if . . . maybe some kind of spell had been cast on us to lower our stats, and some kind of support had been given to Nadia to raise hers? Whenever I tried to check my status screen, something just felt off.
Should I just use the Shield of Wrath and incinerate everything in sight? The thought suddenly crossed my mind. But I wanted to avoid relying on that shield, even for reasons other than reduced stats. Luckily, Raphtalia and Filo could still fight. Not to mention, robes that would nullify the lightning had been thrown into the arena to help them out. If I could get hold of and restrain Nadia again, surely things would go better this time.
And just then, a second harpoon was tossed into the arena toward Nadia. Damn it! Did their support have to have such perfect timing?!
“It’s been a while since I faced an opponent that pushed me this far, you know. I guess it’s time for little ol’ me to . . . get serious.”
Nadia switched her stance to a shallow squat and the surrounding spectators burst into cheers. They were expecting something interesting to happen.
“There it is! Nadia has finally decided to take off the gloves and turn into her animal form! Everyone! Feast your eyes on Nadia’s no-holds-barred coommmbbaaaatttttt!”
Animal form?! If I remember correctly, therianthropes were basically demi-humans whose animal element was more prominent. Just recently, the slave trader had also told me that there were types of demi-humans that could change into their animal form at will. And their stats would skyrocket upon changing. In other words, all this time, Nadia hadn’t been fighting seriously. This was bad . . .
Magic power began gathering around Nadia, forming something that resembled fog and making it difficult to see her. A black silhouette was probably a good description. Along with a bubbling sound, Nadia’s body began to swell up. I considered trying to stop the transformation, but it was happening too fast. It probably would have been over by the time I got anywhere close to her.
Moments later, Nadia’s transformation was complete. Her new form featured a vivid contrast of white on black. Her face had become streamlined, and she had the kind of forked tail that would help a fish move around in the water. Although, it looked far more powerful than what a fish would need. Her skin was glossy—you might have mistaken it for rubber at first glance. She had a dorsal fin on her back that looked like a shark fin, but she didn’t look scary like a shark would.
Well, I had seen this kind of animal used in foreign horror films, but not nearly as often as they used sharks. On the contrary, it was usually an animal that ended up forging friendships with young boys or something like that.
“Huh?”
Raphtalia uttered something that made it clear she was dumbfounded, but this wasn’t the time for that. We needed to pay close attention and be ready to respond.
This animal was one of the more popular attractions at aquariums in Japan. Of course, since Nadia was a therianthrope, she had two arms and two legs, unlike the actual animal. Yeah . . . The animal I was familiar with that most resembled Nadia’s new form belonged to the infraorder Cetacea, parvorder Odontoceti, family Delphinidae, genus Orcinus . . . In other words, it was a killer whale.
I had seen a variety of different therianthropes since coming to this world, but this was my first transforming killer whale. She looked like a real heavyweight that wouldn’t be able to move very quickly . . . but I was sure that probably wasn’t the case. She was about the same size as Filo in her filolial form. To be blunt, she was huge.
“Alright then . . . Here I come!”
Considering how powerful she was and the fact that she used lightning, I was imagining a therianthrope that was part raiju, nue, or some other magical creature. Or maybe a dragon? A tiger or something could have fit the image, too. But she ended up being an aquatic therianthrope.
More important than that was the fact that she had been holding back until now. It was safe to assume that all of her stats had increased. That was evident from the way she was moving around the artificial underwater environment so effortlessly, with just a tiny wave of her tail. Yeah, I was sure we would regret it if we let her appearance fool us. She was probably building up speed to prepare an attack.
Her strategy initially appeared to depend primarily on magic, but perhaps that was because she didn’t use brute force, until she had changed into her animal form. It was probably pretty rare for her to transform, so attacking in this form was something she saved for times when her opponent had some kind of equipment that enabled them to deal with her magic.
Raphtalia was just standing there in a daze, staring at Nadia as she swam around.
“Stop just standing there! You want to die?!”
This wasn’t an opponent that we could finish off in one blow, you know!
“Ra—Shigaraki! Let’s do this!”
I tried to get her on board, but Raphtalia was in a complete stupor and had let her guard down entirely for some reason.
“Big sis!”
Filo tried getting her attention, too, but it was useless.
“Here I come!”
Nadia readied her harpoon, accelerated even more, and shot straight at us to deliver her attack. I jumped out in front to protect Raphtalia and put out multiple shields in front of us. Just as I was about to cast Shooting Star Shield . . .
“Sadeena?”
Chapter Seventeen: Farce
Huh? Raphtalia . . . was talking to Nadia? Nadia was closing in at a ridiculous speed, but when Raphtalia spoke to her, she came to a sudden halt directly in front of us.
“Oh?”
The audience broke out into a commotion upon seeing Nadia stop.
Hold on . . . Sadeena was supposed to be the fisher from Raphtalia’s village, right? The incredibly strong fisher that was . . . a therianthrope . . . They’d said an aquatic therianthrope, right? All of the details were matching up! Did that mean Nadia was actually Sadeena?! No way, a coincidence that huge—
“It really is you, isn’t it, Sadeena? What are you doing here in a place like this?!”
Raphtalia loosened her equipment to reveal her ears and tail.
“Hmm . . . I’m surprised at how big you’ve gotten, but you must be little Raphtalia, right?”
“Yes, it’s me, Sadeena.”
A coincidence that huge . . . was possible, apparently. This was a good thing, right? One of Raphtalia’s fellow villagers was standing right here in front of our eyes, after all. Nadia, or rather Sadeena, stared at me hard for a moment and then cocked her head to the side, like she was trying to figure something out. Then she smiled cheerfully for some reason.
“This sure is a surprise, isn’t it? Do me a favor and pretend like we’re fighting so we can talk for a bit, will you?”
“Sure.”
“So why are you here fighting in this tournament?”
Sadeena changed her target and came after me with her harpoon, pretending like we were struggling with each other. Raphtalia and Filo rushed in swinging, as if to engage in close combat, and then acted like they had been parried and thrown back.
“We needed to get our hands on some money quickly so that we could purchase the village children. We’re currently rebuilding the territory where the village used to be.”
Raphtalia spoke quietly as she explained the situation to Sadeena. The way everyone was looking at us was really starting to bother me. Up until just a few moments ago it had been all-out warfare, and now we were just kind of poking back and forth at each other.
“I guess it would probably take a while to explain how that happened, wouldn’t it? You’ve really become something, little Raphtalia . . .”
She seemed to be getting sentimental . . . Everyone was watching us!
“Hurry up and make some more of that lightning from earlier. Raphtalia and Filo, you two do some kind of showy attack that looks like a finishing move. I’ll use some flashy skills, too.”
“Understood.”
“Okaaay!”
Sadeena cast one of her more impressive-looking lightning attacks over a wide area. It spread out all the way to the arena walls with a thundering roar. I did my best to look like I was struggling and put out my shields to protect against her all-show-and-no-go attack. Then we waited for Raphtalia and Filo to attack. The two of them fired off their own flashy skills back to back.
The truth was, it was all just being staged, using illusion magic. In the meantime, we continued our conversation.
“Why couldn’t you have fought in your animal form from the start?”
If she had used that form from the beginning, Raphtalia probably would have recognized her right away . . . Apparently Raphtalia didn’t know about Sadeena’s human form, either. If she had, we wouldn’t have ended up in a mess like this.
“Oh? Take a look at yourself, little Rock. I could ask you the same basic thing, you know? Using my human form is like wearing a disguise for me.”
I could understand what she was trying to say. We were wearing kabuto helmets and other equipment to conceal our faces. For Sadeena, her human form wasn’t her everyday form, in other words. I was tempted to make a snide remark about how that must have felt. I’d have to ask her about it later.
“Well, what should we do about this, then?”
I returned my thoughts to the problem at hand. If Sadeena wasn’t our enemy, that meant we should be able to settle this battle by talking things over.
“We have a ton of money bet on ourselves. You figure out a way to lose on purpose.”
“As much as I’d like to, I’m afraid I can’t do that. I need the money, too, and I’ve already used quite a bit of it, actually.”
“Alcohol?”
“Oh shush. I’ve been buying up the village children, with a little help from a merchant who has a thing for me.”
Sadeena explained the whole situation briefly and . . . Well, basically, the skyrocketing prices of the Lurolona slaves was partially her fault. Sadeena said she’d bought several of the villagers and was harboring them somewhere in Zeltoble. It was the shady merchant, the one working for her, who had originally offered the reward for the Lurolona slaves to help find them more quickly. But that backfired and ended up causing the prices of the Lurolona slaves to soar. And so, in order to scrape up the funds to purchase the overpriced slaves herself, Sadeena had enlisted the help of another shady weapons merchant to get her into the underground coliseum, among other things.
Why didn’t she search for the slaves in Melromarc and buy them there to begin with? Jeez . . . That’s what I wanted to say, anyway, but then I realized that the stigma of being a therianthrope would have made that difficult, prior to the Church of the Three Heroes being dismantled. In that case, it would have been quicker to place the order in Zeltoble, where it would be a lot easier to make money, too.
So according to Sadeena, her job at the tournament was to the make it to the finals and then throw the championship match. It had been decided that her opponent in that match would be a dark horse, and her loss would ensure a big win. Apparently she had gone into debt purchasing the slaves, too . . . So in all actuality, the Lurolona slaves that she was harboring were essentially hostages!
“What should we do then, I wonder. If we’re not careful, I could have a price placed on my head and the slaves could end up being sold off, you know?”
“What kind of debt are we talking about?”
Sadeena told me the total amount of debt she’d incurred. Damn . . . It was a lot. Still, it was about even with what we were set to win on the championship. If the people who had lent her the money could wait until we got the payout . . . things might just work out.
Sadeena must have figured out what I was thinking, because she put a good amount of distance between us and then nodded. Alright! In that case, it was time to put on a farce.
“Chain Shield!”
Chains extended out as the Chain Shield skill linked the shields that had been scattered across the arena, and they all started spinning. The shields restrained Sadeena immediately, making it look like she had left herself open. If Sadeena had been serious, I’m sure she would have broken the chains or just dodged.
“Shigaraki! Humming! Use your finishing move!”
I yelled at them as loud as I could. They must have understood, because they both nodded and began preparing, building up magic power. Sadeena started trying to break free of her restrictions but made it look like she was having a hard time. A large crashing noise rang out.
“Hahaha! Those are no or
dinary chains, you know? You’re not going to get out of those unless I let you!”
I threw in some contrived commentary to buy time for Raphtalia and Filo to finish their preparations. The audience was brimming with climactic tension. We would keep going until they had reached maximum satisfaction with the performance. Sadeena was grinning. This wasn’t the time to smile! What if they realized what was going on?!
“You’re in for a big surprise if you think these restraints will work on a girl like me!”
“Muhahaha! Go ahead and struggle all you want!”
We threw in a bit of back and forth like that, and then, finally, Raphtalia and Filo finished preparing their magic. At the very same instant, Sadeena used brute force to break free from the chains that had been restricting her, tearing them to pieces. I responded with a shriek.
“Whaaat?!”
If this had been for real, I probably would have just clicked my tongue in annoyance. Even I had to admit, the whole performance was pretty lame. But the audience seemed to really be getting into it, and they erupted into loud cheers.
“But it’s already too late! Let’s do this!”
“Let’s!”
“Okaaay!”
A huge tornado appeared. Did Filo really understand the concept of putting on a performance? I was a bit worried at first, but she’d produced a cyclone so massive that none of the Zweite Tornado spells she had cast before even came close. At first glance, it appeared to be a super, powered-up version of the magic she had been using so far. Raphtalia fired off a fake skill to go along with Filo’s magic.
“Illusion Blade!”
Immediately after she shouted the name, countless katanas appeared and began swirling around with the tornado. The whole thing was headed toward Sadeena. The katanas hit her dead-on, almost as if they were being sucked in toward her.
“Uuugggghhhhhh!”
She was putting on a real performance over there. I escaped from the chains, but the katanas landed a direct hit! That’s what she was acting out. And that scream sounded like it hurt! I almost thought she might really be in pain, but I couldn’t imagine Raphtalia actually hurting one of her fellow villagers. The tornado and katana onslaught continued for twenty or thirty seconds and then . . . stopped.