“…!!”
Brimming with an almost tangible thirst for blood, Argana sprinted forward. Tione rose to meet her, kicking her leg up to block the incoming attack. Argana’s fists flew at her, from the left, from the right, like deadly sickles slicing through the air.
Her nails were long, like a monster’s claws, and her attacks were all the more snakelike when she didn’t have her hands curled into their ironlike fists. Tione quickly crouched in order to evade the relentless blows as the close-range duel of fist on fist continued.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Finally, you’re back to the old you!”
“Just shut up and fight already!”
It wouldn’t do Tione any good to remain on the defensive in a fight against someone like Argana, who had killed so many of her own kin. There was no one in the world who’d be able to endure this woman’s monstrous attacks for long. At some point, she herself would need to attack.
The two Amazons whaled on each other, spurred on by burgeoning waves of fury and rage. They were like crazed bulls in an arena; each strike soliciting a return barrage; one hit turned into two. It was almost as if the battles they’d waged so long ago in that stone training room were returning to life before their eyes, only fiercer, more savage.
“Huuuuuuuuuuwwwwwwwwooooooooooaaaaaaaarrrrrgggghh!!”
Their attacks were as sharp as razor blades, their techniques swift and sure enough to elicit gasps of astonishment. And as the other Amazons watched this duel of the fates unfold, they let out bellowing roars. The sheer power erupting from their lungs was enough to change the minds of any monsters thinking of approaching the ship.
The light of the magic-stone lanterns on deck trembled.
“Gnngh?!”
Argana’s claws grazed Tione’s cheek, drawing blood. The Amazon curled her long tongue upward to lick at the drops that had splattered on her own cheek.
“You…you snake!!” Tione exploded, all the thoughts of her youth, those memories of anger and pain rushing up through her. Not even realizing she’d activated her Berserker skill, she let her fist fly with the weight of every one of those poignant memories behind it.
“Your blood is as delicious as I always thought it would be…”
“You’re sick!!”
“I’ve wanted to drink it for so long…so long, Tione. Down to the very…last…drop,” she murmured, dodging Tione’s attack as her eyes lit up with the fiery passion of a woman in love.
Tione would have backed away in disgust if she could. Argana’s eyes were more reptilian than ever. Her ex-teacher’s claws bit into her again, her arms this time, and she was quick to lap up the red blood.
“—Ngh.”
A strange feeling of discomfort washed over her.
It started out slight but grew and grew, and to Tione’s horror, she saw the wounds on her arm grow, and more and more blood flowed from the split skin to sate her opponent’s snakelike tongue.
She sent an enraged fist flying in Argana’s direction, but the other Amazon was already long gone.
More and more of her attacks were missing.
—Wait a minute.
Just as Tione’s power was growing with the help of her Berserker skill, so, too, was her opponent’s—.
“You’re too slow, Tione.”
“”
Argana nimbly sidestepped her punch, disappearing from her field of vision.
Before suddenly wrapping herself around her back, limbs sliding around her like a snake curling around its prey. There was a hiss in her ear, then Argana’s incisors sank into Tione’s neck.
“Grrrrrrrraaaaaaahhhhhh?!”
Her nerves burned with a fiery pain. She could actually feel her skin and flesh tearing and hear her blood being sucked out.
Then came Argana’s tongue, groping inside her like some kind of parasitic centipede, triggering a violent revulsion that sent goose bumps down her whole body.
She tumbled to the floor of the deck as Argana quickly rose to her feet, on the defensive once again.
“You…you hag…!” Tione hissed as she staggered back to her feet, trying to suppress the blood pouring freely from the fresh holes in her neck.
Argana merely narrowed her eyes, tongue sliding over and savoring her bloodstained lips.
It was a sight Tione had seen far too many times back in Telskyura—the aberrant warrior mercilessly draining the blood of her opponents as they screamed in vain.
Body trembling in pain and anger, Tione reaffirmed her resolve.
“That’s how you get your power, isn’t it…? From the blood of your opponents…?!”
Argana sneered.
Tione was right on the money.
“You’ve noticed, have you?”
“Is it the same magic as Bache’s…?!”
“Mine is a curse,” the other Amazon responded, caressing her exposed skin. “It’s known as Kalima. As you’ve already guessed, it allows me to strengthen my abilities through the blood of others blessed with the power of the Falna.”
“…?!”
“Kali refers to it as ‘Blood Drain.’ Only she and Bache know about it…and considering I never used it during your training, it’s no surprise you never noticed it, either.”
Kalima. Blood Drain. A curse.
As each of the words passed Argana’s lips, connections began forming in Tione’s memories.
She’d always assumed Argana’s bloodsucking attacks, and even that nickname, Kalima, had simply been a show of force used to strike fear in her opponents. But looking back now, it had a legitimate purpose. And it was why that annoying name had come to be used as her own alias to boot. Everything made sense.
The impact of this revelation was enough to throw Tione for a momentary loop. “Is there no end to how strong it can make you…? How…how is that even fair?!” she spit out, her voice husky.
“Of course not. Break the curse, and my abilities return to normal. Also, a piddling splash of blood would do no good. It needs to be an ample amount, like the mouthful I took from you earlier.”
“…Then, the sacrifice?”
“My endurance. It drops significantly.”
Just tell all your deepest secrets, why don’t you?! Tione couldn’t help but think even as she remained in awe of the information being revealed.
A secret technique that, upon fulfilling its requirements, would grant its user a truly limitless increase in their Status in exchange for a sharp drop in endurance? Curses were rare enough as it was among magic users, but this one in particular had to be the rarest of the rare.
A skill known only to Argana. A blood sacrifice. There wasn’t a more perfect skill for the powerful yet despicable warrior.
“You remember, don’t you, Tione? When you asked me whether I felt anything about killing my own brethren?” Argana asked, Tione’s breath ragged opposite her. “I feel elation. By feasting on their flesh, I grow stronger. They’re not gone—they’re inside me! They get to live forever, cheating death as they propel me to the highest of plateaus, the strongest warrior in all the world!” The Telskyuran monster was shouting now as she offered up her prayers of gratitude to the many souls she’d consumed.
“They have no reason to mourn! Their blood shall become mine, and we’ll live together…forever!!” The snake laughed, childlike joy bubbling up and out from her lungs. Her eyes sparkled, her mind truly convinced that she was nothing short of a savior to the victims who’d died at her hands.
“And Kali…Kali is waiting, too. She’s waiting for me to become the strongest in all the land. Which is why…I’ll be feasting on your flesh soon, Tione.”
“Like hell, you monster…!!” Tione shouted back, her teeth bared in anger. All around them, the other Amazons swallowed hard in fear.
“From the moment I saw you in the lake…I knew it was fate.”
Meanwhile, a similarly vi
olent duel was taking place down in the cave by the sea.
Bache’s and Tiona’s strikes swung at each other back and forth in the middle of their arena of stone, as Kali and the other Amazons spectated from above. Like Tione and Argana, they, too, wielded nothing but their bare fists and feet.
There was only one weapon, Bache’s Velgas, which came at Tiona like a deadly storm in her flurry of attacks. With each sweep of the poisonous crystal of purplish-black light coating her right hand, the ground below let out a monstrous phwooooooooooom and a plume of smoke, its surface now stained the same color as her hand.
There was no way for Tiona to defend against this type of magic attack, and she found herself unable to do anything but evade the incoming strikes again and again.
“I hated Kali at first…for letting the two of you leave. You were supposed to be mine to kill…and yet you got away.”
“…!”
“Argana felt the same,” Bache continued, stoic. The only thing that betrayed her true emotions was the sheer ferocity behind her attacks. As she attacked, Tiona attempted to use the same combat techniques she’d instilled in her so many years ago to send her own Velgas flying back at her.
“For us to be fighting like this…now…here…it is truly our destiny.”
“Geez, Bache. I didn’t even know you had that many words in you!”
“Yes. I do have a tendency to talk more when I get excited,” Bache responded, though none of the excitement she mentioned was revealed on her face. Tiona couldn’t help but feel glad that Lefiya wasn’t present.
Their conversation was a mix of Amazonian language and Koine, the differing languages enough to make her head spin. And what was worse, she felt like Bache was already gaining on her. Her opponent’s strikes were simply too powerful.
My body’s actually doing what I want it to do thanks to that warm-up fight with Tione, but…that magic is somethin’ else!
She couldn’t even get close to the other Amazon. Her head flashed with memories of the past, of her fellow brethren writhing in pain from a mere graze from Bache’s Velgas. As a young girl, the sight of that coolheaded warrior woman calmly exterminating her prey had been enough to traumatize her for life.
Yikes! Thinking’s not gonna do me any good here! I don’t have Tione and the others to back me up! she thought—a thought very unbecoming to an adventurer who had to be ready with a plan at all times when Dungeon crawling—before effectively turning off her brain and simply darting forward.
“Me, though? I was always pleased as punch, you know? How you’d read books to me and sometimes even wipe me down after our training sessions?”
“…All of that was nothing but…ways to pass the time.”
Tiona flew at her, even with the threat of Bache’s venomous fist looming in front of her. There was no way she’d be able to dodge every one of the incoming punches, and in due course, one of the magic-infused strikes grazed the side of her body.
Pain flared up across her skin in an instant, a strange odor mixing with the rising smoke.
With the hit, Bache’s defense rose, as well.
“Hngh!”
“?!”
Bache’s eyes narrowed, and she aimed a strike straight toward Tiona’s chest.
Though Tiona was able to block the direct attack with her left arm, it screamed with the sting of Bache’s Velgas. The rippling pain of her skin melting before her eyes was enough to make her realize she couldn’t keep this up for long.
From atop her vantage point, Kali watched everything with a thin smile, reveling in the way Tiona refused to back down despite repeated hits from Bache’s Velgas.
“Status resistance, hmm? No doubt something she picked up in Orario. But how long will she be able to keep it up? The venom of those Dungeon monsters doesn’t hold a candle to my Bache’s.”
Not once during their training back in Telskyura had Bache used her magic on Tiona.
But it was not out of kindness. No, Bache used her magic only when she was sure that she was going to take down her prey. Never would she allow her opponent to take countermeasures or develop a resistance to her venom.
It had to be a sure kill.
—Swifter and deadlier than even the toxin of a poison vermis.
Colder than the venom of any monster writhing and squirming down in the Dungeon.
Tiona felt that chill pass through her now, but at the same time, something warm was forming inside her.
It was her Berserk skill, the same as her sister’s. A skill that boosted her attack power the more damage she took. Feeling the power surging within her, she gave up on petty tricks and simply launched everything she had straight at the woman in front of her.
“!!”
Bache’s eyes widened for the first time at the unexpected assault.
The attack sailed toward her like a river breaking through a dam, and she flung up her Velgas to ward it off, but Tiona paid it no heed. As it carved through her shoulder, it only increased her power, and she drove her head straight into her opponent’s body with all the force her skill could lend her.
“Hnnguh?!”
The plump roundness of Bache’s chest took the full brunt of the attack, and her legs crumpled beneath her.
Tiona took that opportunity to spin around into a powerful roundhouse kick even as her charred shoulder wailed in pain.
Tione’s favorite kick!!
“Strong enough to cut through flesh and bone.”
Her entire body whirled to drive the kick straight at Bache’s face.
It happened in an instant—THWACK!!
The dull sound of flesh on flesh, bone on bone, echoed throughout the cavern, hushing the exuberant cries of the surrounding Amazons. Silence settled over the crowd. Kali, too, said nothing as she looked down at the two warriors, her legs still crossed beneath her.
Then, just when it seemed the silence was liable to carve through their very eardrums…
Tiona’s eyes dilated in shock.
It wasn’t because Bache had somehow gotten her left hand up just in time to block the incoming kick.
No, it was at the purplish-black tangle of light that now enveloped her entire body.
“What…?” she gasped as she heard her right foot begin to thrum with an unnerving phroooooom.
What the…hell?
“You didn’t know, did you…?”
But the voice wasn’t from Bache, who was currently directing her gaze toward Tiona in cold silence, but from Kali up above them.
“When Bache reached Level Six, her Velgas leveled up, too. Not only did its power increase…but so did its range.”
It was the blessing that came with every level-up. The increase that was applied to not only one’s abilities but one’s magic power, as well. Though Bache had only ever been able to enchant her right hand with her Velgas before, now she was able to enchant her whole body, the same as Aiz did with her Airiel.
Even now, Bache’s bewitching copper skin seemed awash in an almost electrifying purplish-black light, turning her entire body into a glowing insect shell.
“Gnnngah, hot, hot, hottt?!” Tiona screeched, forced to retreat as the stretched seconds sped forward to catch up with reality.
Her leg had turned an unsettling color, now seemingly devoid of strength. Bache, however, paid this no mind, already racing toward her in merciless pursuit.
“My magic may not be strong enough to act as armor, but it’s plenty strong enough to enhance the pain and suffering of my opponents.”
“Eek! Unngah?!”
“Why don’t you attack? If you just stand there like a bump on a log, I’ll take you out with ease.”
Tiona stumbled backward as Bache advanced, her every ominously glowing limb attacking from all sides.
Even before, the Amazon’s uncanny strength was enough to crush a person whole, but now with the added power of her Velgas covering her entire form, she could easily rend even a sturdy-bodied first-tier adventurer limb from limb.
&n
bsp; Bones cracking, skin prickling with a searing pain, Tiona spat blood from between her teeth.
—What gives, huh? How’m I supposed to beat this lady?!
She couldn’t let herself get hit. She couldn’t do the hitting.
Which meant…she was gonna die long before she’d have any chance of taking Bache down—.
Despair began to gnaw away at her heart like little worms as the view in front of her became ever more clouded with incoming strikes.
“Have I broken your spirit, Tiona?”
“Hu—gggnnnnnnnnwwwwuuuaaaaAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!”
Bache’s hand grabbed ahold of Tiona’s face and lifted her.
She couldn’t see, coughing up smoke and muck as her face sizzled beneath Bache’s fingers. She screamed. Grappling desperately at the fingers digging into her skin, she attempted to pull away the other woman’s grip, but the powerful vise was simply too strong.
Bache began to squeeze, slowly crushing her head like a ripe berry.
“Tiona…do you know why it is that I trained you so diligently?”
“……!!”
Bache’s icy voice filled her ears, her world shrouded in light—blackish, purplish, venomous light.
“It was for this very day. The day when I could fight against you in all your glory…and feast upon your flesh.”
“?!”
“I’ve been preparing myself since the moment we first met. Yes, you would grow strong…so strong…and through that strength, I, too, would reach a new plateau—by killing you.”
She would level up. That’s what she was referring to. The ritualistic act where lower-world denizens would break free of the container of their Statuses and reach new heights in their abilities.
By felling Tiona now that her strength had matured, by feasting on her, Bache would accomplish a true feat, propelling her to that coveted next level.
“Not once have I ever thought of Argana as a sister. In my eyes, she’s nothing but a predator.” A momentary glint of fear flashed across her steely eyes. “A predator I refuse to let consume me. I…don’t want to die.”
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? On the Side: Sword Oratoria, Vol. 6 Page 21