by Funa
“W-wait! No wait, that’s not it! Don’t be hasty!” The leader quickly waved his hands in denial, sensing the dangerous aura forming around Mile. “We’ll keep our promise! Please, you gotta believe me! We couldn’t bear to be embarrassed any further than this, and even if we fought all out right now, I don’t think that we could win… Anyway, we didn’t plan to do anything bad around here. We’ve got no problem taking you to where the rest of us are.”
“Then what is it?” Mile asked, her face still without expression.
“Our loss as a team has already been decided, but I still haven’t gotten a chance to fight. I know that, as a leader, it’s my duty to take responsibility for our loss, but I still feel kinda shamed as an individual. That’s all it is. I still wanna have a fight, just you and me. If I win, it’ll satisfy my pride, and we demons can hold on to some of ours. If I lose, though…” He took a short breath and continued, “Then I, not as the leader of this group, but as an individual, will do one thing that you ask, no matter what it is.”
And so, the fourth round began.
Finding nothing objectionable in the leader’s words, Mile quickly returned to her usual disposition, her anger quelled. As for the demon leader, however…
Sorry about this, guys, he thought. If I can report this as, ‘Of course I won, but I had no idea that those other three might lose to some little human girls…’ I’ll still have to take some responsibility, but at least my own pride won’t be tarnished. I’m sorry, guys! I’m really sorry!
The leader cast a quick glance at his comrades, who were watching him nervously.
He was scum.
And furthermore…
This little one here seems to have a pretty high status. Maybe she’s the kid of a noble or somethin’—if she were one of ours, she’d be the granddaughter of a village chief. So I betcha she can’t use magic or even has any physical combat skills. It’s only because she’s got these three top-level humans here as her guards that she can act so high and mighty…
Indeed, like so many fools had before, he was underestimating Mile.
The fact that she was dressed like a sword wielder meant that magic must not be one of her strong suits. Plus, he could tell just by the way she carried herself and moved her body; from her fine, smooth, and delicate hands, which were completely free from calluses; and from her small and slender physique, that when it came to the martial arts, she was a complete amateur.
“Now then, let’s get started. Don’t you worry, we’ve got healing magic too, so you won’t end up with any scars, and I won’t hurt you too much, either. Of course, it’d be even better for you to forfeit before ya get injured at all…”
He took a few precautions with his words, certain that if he hurt the girl even a bit, her fearsome guards would come leaping into the fray. Their side had already won the tourney, so they had no reason not to intervene to protect their master at the first sign of trouble.
“All right, let’s do this! Binding Ice!”
He was wracked with worry that should he use any particularly dangerous-seeming magic, those guards would be on him in the blink of an eye. So he started off with a restrictive spell, one that would do no more than bind her arms and legs, with no chance of doing any fatal harm. Naturally, given that it was intended for the battlefield, this restrictive magic was still a type of combat magic.
The girl showed no signs of resisting, and balls of ice quickly formed around her ankles and wrists, snapping them straight together, when—
Crack!
They were shattered.
“Huh…?”
The demons were stunned. The Crimson Vow barely appeared to care.
“Did he cast the spell wrong? No, it was definitely right! He must’ve just misfired a bit. That’s what it was…” the spectating demons judged, but the combatant himself had no time to be entertaining such thoughts.
“D-damn it! I was tryin’ my best not to hurt ya, but I guess we’re gonna do this the hard way now! Ice Javelin!”
“Ice Shield!”
He had launched the icy spear at a slow speed, its tip blunted. In an instant, it was dashed away by the wall of ice that arose in front of Mile.
“Are you planning on taking this seriously?”
“Huh…?”
“I asked if you’re planning on taking this battle seriously!”
Everyone reflexively looked to Mile’s face.
It was expressionless.
Waaaaah!
The Crimson Vow knew very well what this meant.
Once again, Mile was angry.
She’d finally gotten the chance to have a one-on-one fight, just like the one against Gren of the Roaring Mithrils or against Mavis’s father. So she’d assumed she would get to have a bit of fun. Those other two times had been sword battles, but this was a test of magic against a demon, for whom magic was a specialty.
A magic battle against a demon!
Her first real magic battle, one where she could go as hard as she wanted, no holds barred. Plus, with this framed as an already-decided contest, there was no one and nothing else for her to worry about.
And yet, though her heart was pounding, she had been greeted with this weak display.
“If this is what you have in mind, then I have a thing or two to say about that…”
“You all might want to step in a bit closer!” Reina shouted to the watching demons.
They had all been standing together at the outset of the tournament, but a small divide had naturally opened between the two sides as the battles went on. Apparently, Reina deemed this to be a hazard.
“Hm?”
Hearing this, the youngest demon, who still remembered Reina’s warm embrace and her sweet scent, went red in the face. The other three were slack-jawed.
“Look, just get over here already! If you don’t, then the emergency barrier can’t protect you!”
Her meaning was unclear, but the four somehow caught the gist that this was a matter of life or death for them and quickly clustered in with the members of the Crimson Vow.
Indeed, those who were not at least that sharp would meet a swift end in this world. Just like their leader, who was still caught in the fray…
Now it was Mile’s turn to attack.
“Phaser, fire!”
Bwoomf!
“Wh…?”
The leader got the impression that something faster than the eye could see had just flown past his face. Timidly, he looked back to see that a rock behind him now had a hole several centimeters wide As his head creaked back to face Mile, he saw the girl grinning at him—though the smile did not reach her eyes at all.
“Would you like to try taking one of those head-on?”
Psssh!
Sweat began gushing from every pore of his body.
Yes, the leader finally understood two things:
First, that the girl standing before him was not some mere jackalope.
More like a f-ferocious, venomous jackalope from hell…
And second, that the path he had chosen was not the stairway to heaven, but in fact, very much the opposite.
If I don’t get serious, she’s gonna kill me!
Mile glanced briefly away to confirm that Reina had corralled all of the others within the barrier. Everyone would be safe, no matter what kind of magic she might send flying their way. Everyone, that was, except for the man standing in front of her.
The terrain around them was also mostly rock, dotted only here and there by thin shrubbery, so she had no fear of damaging the environment, either.
“Here I come!”
Fwoom…
There was a vibration from Mile’s brandished sword, and the blade began to glow blue.
“Wha…?!”
A magic sword.
Just when the leader had thought that Mile was some privileged girl decorated only by status, who could use neither magic nor blade, she had let loose an incredible bullet so fast that it could not be seen by the naked eye. Ju
st when he thought that she only had some middling magical skill, she had produced an impressive blade. And now she was using a high-level technique, her sword itself clad in magic.
Yet even if she was equipped with a magic blade, it would mean nothing if her sword skills were insufficient. As he had previously determined, there was no mistaking that she was a novice in the way of the sword, with her poor stance, her lack of muscle, and the fact that her arms and legs were clear and smooth, without a single sign of a scar or callus anywhere.
His assumption that she could not use magic had stemmed only from the fact that she was equipped with a sword, so he could not be blamed for making a false call there. However, his judgment this time was based on careful observations. There could be no mistaking it.
If she was using a sword now, and not her rather decent magical ability, it was probably because her power was limited and she had given her all in that one shot.
Though if that were the case, then how could she still be using her magical blade, which required her to maintain a continuous spell? Besides, if her power was that limited, it would have been smarter for her to aim straight for him the very first time.
Just what was she thinking?
A sick thought drifted across the leader’s mind.
Was she toying with him?
It couldn’t be. That couldn’t possibly be.
He had been chosen as the head guard for the investigation team. How could someone like him become the plaything of a fragile human, a girl of sapling years?
Impossible. Absolutely, absolutely impossible!
For a moment, the leader’s head went blank. In that moment, he silently incanted a spell.
“Fire Laaaaaaance!”
Overtaken by the flames of rage, he allowed himself to let loose an attack spell—an excessively powerful one.
Damn!
The instant the spell went off, he returned to his senses, but it was already too late. A fire-type attack spell with a high fatality rate was flying directly toward the little girl. Now that it had been cast, no one could stop it—including the man who had fired it.
She’s dead! the demons all thought at once.
Just then…
Fwish!
The fiery lance was cut down by a blade. Casually, as though it were but a twig.
“Impossible!!!”
Mile’s mouth was a flat line. Normally such a thing would be a sign of nerves or unease, but in Mile’s case, it meant something different—that she was trying not to show how relaxed she felt.
“Well, it looks like she’s back to herself,” said Reina.
It was just as she suggested; things were finally getting good. That was what Mile’s face said to her companions.
Mile was not going to use a barrier this time. Letting all of her enemy’s attacks be immediately deflected wouldn’t be any fun. She would lower the power of her own attack spells as well. It would be pretty boring if she broke straight through the demon’s defenses every time.
Was she just playing around with him? No, this was a real battle—but she was taking on a handicap.
If this match had had any bearing on her team’s victory, she would not have done such a thing. However, the tourney had already been decided in their favor, so Mile reckoned it was all right for her to relax and enjoy herself just this one time.
“Fire Shot!”
The quick spell that the leader fired off was not some tiny flame bullet. It was four shots at once, aimed at her head, her abdomen, and both sides of her body. She could crouch, jump, or dodge to the side, but at least one of them was certain to hit. Plus, unlike normal fireballs, these shots would explode on impact. They hit fast and packed a punch.
The leader had already abandoned all pretenses of holding back for he had finally come to realize that this was not an enemy he could hope to defeat by doing so. As long as he didn’t kill her, it was fine. As long as she was still alive, she could be fixed with healing magic.
The four shots flew toward Mile. They were moving quickly, though naturally far slower than any bullet fired from a gun. Mile could easily calculate their trajectory and simply move her body to avoid them…but that wouldn’t be any fun.
Instead, she decided to chance them head-on, sword in hand.
Ka-bwoosh!
“Whuh?”
They vanished.
All four bullets vanished in the blink of an eye.
All Reina and Pauline could tell was that Mile had moved her sword. Even the five demons and Mavis, with her keen eyes, could just barely discern what had happened. Mile had swung her sword four times—twice vertically, twice horizontally—slicing each of the bullets in two and destroying them.
“Why didn’t they explode?!” the leader shouted.
Indeed, these were explosive-type shots, so even cleft by a sword, they should have detonated on impact. This should have caused some moderate injury, or at the very least, occluded her field of vision and ruined her stance. It should have made landing his next attack a certainty.
And yet, they had been extinguished without so much as a ka-boom. They had simply vanished.
With a normal sword, the bullets would have exploded on impact. Mile’s blade, however, was coated with magic. This magic had cancelled out the magic of the bullets.
As she swung her blade, the phrase ‘particle annihilation,’ had popped into Mile’s head, but the nanomachines could not fathom that she was actually proposing to create antimatter, so they instead enacted a simple offset of energy. Such flexibility was one of the nanomachines’ truly awe-inspiring capabilities, though Mile was utterly unaware of this.
“Fire Shot!”
Mile now let off the very same spell. Four bullets just like her opponent’s, aimed top and bottom, left and right.
Battleships were usually designed to withstand the same battering force that the vessel itself could muster. In the same way, these demons should be trained to take the same intensity of attacks that they could dish out, Mile thought.
“Guh!”
As someone whose specialty was magic, all the demon leader would have needed to do was to put up a magic wall in front of himself. However, having seen the piercing power of Mile’s first attack, he wasn’t willing to take that risk.
Instead, this was his safety measure: Reduce the number of shots taken as much as possible and avoid being hit in any vital areas. To do this, he dodged to the left, avoiding the bullets aimed at his head, abdomen, and heart, and then deflected the remaining right-side chest bullet.
“Flare Lance!”
He had no way of knowing how strong his opponent’s attack was. At times like these, it was best to get off a strong spell as a counterattack—one that could fire fast.
It was a waste of magic, but it couldn’t be helped. Desperate times called for desperate measures. If he didn’t like it, then he should have gotten more information about his opponent or had more faith in his own magic. Having done neither of these, he had no right to complain.
Destroyed again! Maybe I’ll use a Fire Javelin or Fireball next. No, wait, if I use a weaker spell and hers happens to break through, then…
It was a sticky situation. Any error in judgment could mean taking an attack from a lesser foe and losing. Continuing to use a powerful attack every single time would result in the worst possible scenario, i.e. using up all his magic and losing to a human, particularly one who seemed to have an absurd amount of magical power for her race. Were such a thing to happen, he would be the laughingstock of his people in perpetuity.
Wait a minute! What am I, a coward? I don’t need to be concentrating on defense—I should be making sure she has no chance to attack. I need to attack her relentlessly and take back the upper hand!
For some reason, there was a gap in Mile’s attacks, and the leader took this opportunity to strike at full force.
It was a full-on continuous assault, the strikes emphasizing ease of movement over force—the same tactic that Reltobert had employed
in his battle against Mavis.
This time, he was on the attack, not Mile.
When it came to attacks where speed was more important than power, there was nothing to use but the most basic of basics. Because they were already mid-match, there was no need for any silent casting. In order to keep up his speed as well as his power, he quickly recited the incantation for the spells in his head, releasing them with only the attack’s name.
“Fireball!”
Whoosh!
Five small, bright red balls of flame went flying toward Mile simultaneously. However, the assault did not end there.
“Fireball! Fireball! Fireball!”
More groups of five flew out, one after the other. Having already incanted the spell once in his head, all the leader had to do subsequently was voice the name of it again and again. Such continuous attacks were a demonic specialty. Because there were so many of them who could use such techniques, it became thought of as a standard ability of theirs and was perhaps the origin of the popular theory that it was impossible to win against a demon in a test of magic.
Working with that theory, it would not be unreasonable to claim that Mavis, who had outstripped her opponent with her own continued attacks, could beat a demon at their own game in everything but stamina. Much to the demons’ astonishment.
At any rate, countless fireballs now rained down on Mile like a meteor shower. If even a few among those were to strike, a delicate little thing like her would be sapped of all will to fight.
However, Mile only stood calmly, her sword gripped tight. As the mass of fireballs moved closer and closer, she showed no signs of moving to avoid them.
“Secret Technique: Meteor Bat for a B-rank Small Fry!”
Even if he were a “small fry,” the fact that the leader could use such a technique promoted him to at least B-rank, Mile thought.
She swung her sword swiftly back and forth in a stunning display, eliminating the fireballs one after another with nary an explosion—and without any damage to her sword.
“Wh…?”
“And now it’s my turn!” said Mile as she swung her sword again. Shock waves beamed out from the space left behind by its movement and flew toward the demon leader. She aimed for the area around his knees so as not to kill him instantly.