A beast-like face twisted in fury. A gruesome aura flickering like flames.
“Why are you staring here of all places? That lunatic kid…!”
Belita, slightly staggering, kicked off the ground and leaped towards Friede.
“Die pierced like a kebab!”
A fierce roar. Anger mixed with hatred was clearly evident in her wide eyes.
“Friede!”
I desperately dashed forward, swinging my longsword and deflecting Belita’s spear that was hurtling toward Friede to the side.
Crash!
A dazzling shower of sparks erupted.
Tsking, Belita let her spear bounce off and spun around, aiming the tail end of her lance at my temple.
Bang!
I raised my left arm to block. The gauntlet collided with the spear, slightly crumpling, sending a vicious pain through my forearm.
This hurts like hell!
“It’s YOU who’s gonna get pierced!”
Suppressing the throb in my arm with a shout of anger, I stabbed the longsword toward the bastard’s gut like a dagger.
“Haah!”
A thrust packed with [Strong Force].
If she tried to endure with her armor, it’d go right through her and pierce her torso—
“…Hah, this is nothing.”
I aimed past Belita, who was half-laid back, and only pierced the emptiness above her body.
“Who’s gonna take this hit?”
Belita thrust her spear into the ground to stop her falling body, then spun around like she was pole dancing and whipped my thigh with her leg like a whip.
I had no chance to dodge. My body was frozen in place due to the recoil from my [Strong Force].
Thwack!
Belita’s foot, with her full weight behind it, struck my thigh like a battering ram.
“Argh!”
It felt like my flesh and muscles were bursting. However, the chill coursing through my heart and the rage clouding my mind suppressed the pain.
“What the…!”
My legs buckled as my body was about to tumble forward.
I kicked off the ground with my good right foot, launching myself at Belita, who was pulling out her spear like a bull on fire.
Crash!
“Guh!”
A shoulder tackle with the weight of several dozen kilograms. Belita, trying to raise her left arm to block my shoulder, was sent flying like a child hit by a car, rolling on the ground.
In the meantime, I used the longsword I had reversed to brace my falling body on the ground, exhaling the pent-up breath violently.
“Haah, haah…! Are you okay, Friede?!”
What felt like minutes passed, though in reality was only a matter of seconds.
Finally, I could afford to check on Friede’s condition, despite my thumping left arm and throbbing thigh as a price.
“Yes! I’m okay, really okay! Just, uh, except for the sword…!”
Friede nodded while holding up her shortened great sword, now barely a third its size.
“Good, that’s a relief.”
I was glad she wasn’t hurt in any serious way.
“If it’s a sword… go over there and ask for one. There should be at least one lying around.”
I pointed toward the party fighting near the cart.
There should be a couple of great swords plundered from the corpses of mountain bandits in that cart.
It wouldn’t be as good as her original great sword, but still better than fighting without a weapon.
“And, once you have it, help those guys!”
“Uh… you mean, help those people? Not Hilde?”
“Yeah, or they’ll all be dead.”
The situation was so dire it was hard to even say it was good, even in jest.
They were holding firm, but from what I could see, at least seven or eight were already dead. It looked like a dam ready to collapse.
“But if I do that, Hilde… No, um, I mean…! Of course, Hilde couldn’t lose to a woman like that—she, she wouldn’t!”
Friede, about to argue back, flinched in surprise and hurriedly shook her head.
“B-but… is it really okay? Are you sure it’s alright…?”
Am I sure it’s alright?
Well, that’s hard to say…but isn’t this not the time to worry about that? If they’re wiped out, it’ll be our turn next anyway.
“I’ll manage somehow. I’m good enough. I have a rough idea now.”
So, I nodded reassuringly, straightening my previously bent waist.
“…Yes, I’ll trust you!”
Friede hesitated and fumbled for a moment, but eventually nodded with a sigh and shot off towards the cart.
Great, at least now I wouldn’t have to worry about them… well, at least not for a bit longer. Whether we won or lost, it was beyond my control now.
If we lost even after Friede joined in, that means we never had a chance from the start.
So now, the only thing I had to worry about was just one thing.
“…This is ridiculous.”
A single woman wielding a spear, walking towards me, coated in dirt and grime from head to toe.
◆◆
“You’re sending that little girl over there even though it’ll be two of us? Guess you have five lives or something?”
Belita twirled her spear around, spitting on the ground.
“Looks like you only have one? That must be tough to live.”
She answered while slightly bending her knees, lowering her stance, and before she could even finish speaking, her spear shot towards me like a lightning bolt.
“Yaaaah!”
By the time I recognized it, the spearhead was already inches away from my face. My response was to roll aside and gap about three steps away.
Whoosh!
The eerie whoosh of her spear slicing through the air echoed in my ears. Belita stopped midair, precisely three steps away from me, just as I had calculated.
‘Just as I thought.’
Normally, I shouldn’t be dodging like this.
Rolling on the ground would present an enormous opening to the enemy until I could stand again.
Unless I jumped away completely, a mere three-step distance meant I would be pierced before I could stand.
A three-step gap is more than enough for Belita to take a step and spear me with ease.
“Tch…!”
However, Belita did not take that step. Even though it was a prime chance to inflict a mortal wound.
As expected.
“Take this!”
I grabbed a handful of dirt beneath my feet and sprang up, throwing the clump of dirt at Belita’s face.
“Dirt?!”
A crude trick only street thugs would use. Someone like her should easily evade it with just a slight step aside.
“Disgusting…!”
But, Belita didn’t dodge and took the dirt directly in her face, covering it.
No, she perhaps couldn’t move.
I smiled at my accurate prediction and thrust my longsword down with lightning speed.
“Just as I expected!”
Didn’t I say to Friede earlier? That I had a rough idea.
That was no lie.
Through the brief skirmish until now, I’d figured out the principle and limitations of Belita’s high-speed charge.
‘Speeding up only applies to movement speed. Attack speed and reaction speed remain unchanged.’
Considering that her leg kick was still bearable, her strength was likely the same too.
‘That means she has a characteristic that amplifies only her movement speed…’
Such traits could be what [Swift Leg] or [Rabbit’s Foot], [Acceleration], or [Leap] would grant.
‘And that comes with a cost…’
“No way you can move now, right?!”
Temporary immobility.
Just as my [Strong Force] rapidly drained stamina in proportion to the power output, Belita couldn’t move for a few seconds right after charging.
That’s why she had to block Friede’s great sword head-on, and why she couldn’t step forward and pierce me while evading the dirt.
Every time she missed her charge, she must’ve been nervously talking to hide that vulnerability.
Right after charging, she couldn’t lift her feet off the ground, meaning whatever came flying at her had to be taken directly!
“I’ve seen through it all!”
“Don’t get cocky!”
Her left hand, raised to block the dirt, couldn’t guard her right side as she wildly swung her spear to intercept my bouts of black steel.
Yet, how could she block a strike swung with both hands using just one?
Clang!
Brilliant sparks flew up.
With a blinding flash, the blade of my sword tore through the air, piercing her right shoulder straight through.
Thwunk!
Without mercy, the black steel blade plowed through her clothing and flesh, scraping against the shoulder blade and ripping through the muscle.
The gushing spray of blood stained Belita’s cloak a bright red.
“Guh…!”
Belita’s face contorted in pain.
It was the first strike I managed to land. Her shoulder suffered a deep cut that exposed the bone and revealed the muscle beneath.
Considering she only took one hit, it was quite a serious wound.
“Looks like it hurts a lot? Your expression says it all!”
“How dare you!”
Furious, Belita extended her left arm towards me.
Fwoosh!
A wave of murderous intent crashed towards me. The glint of sharp nails emanated from her gauntlet, soaked in a horrific amount of blood scent.
Instincts rang the alarm bells.
Getting caught by that arm would be dangerous. I would probably lose my head just like Amina. That feeling struck me.
…Then.
“If you can’t catch me, then that’s just too bad!”
Using [Strong Force], I launched my left hand forward. My palm and fist collided with her arm, reverberating through the air with a metallic crash.
Creeeek…!
The creaking sound of metal under pressure. The deformed gauntlet pressed against my palm.
‘What power…?!’
It was surprising. While it wasn’t maximum output, launching a punch with [Strong Force] should’ve been enough, and yet it was stopped by just one palm.
…Had I been hit, I might’ve died. I’m glad I trusted my instincts to dampen it.
“Hah… you blocked that?!”
I wasn’t the only one shocked. In fact, Belita looked even more surprised than I was.
“Blocked it with just one arm? No way, really?”
The expression on her face was one she’d never shown before, confronting someone with equal strength. Confusion, frustration, competitive spirit, and rage mixed together like mud on her face.
“What are you? Some sort of troll hybrid?”
A troll hybrid? Where did that nonsense even come from?
“Looks like your father was a troll. You just confessed your birth secret by coming up with that line.”
A retort has to come back as a retort.
“…What?”
“Only someone of your strength could be a troll hybrid, right? So, if that’s the case, it’s like a confession of your birth secret, isn’t it?”
I teased her, nudging the ground with my right foot, suggesting, “Was your birthplace perhaps a troll cave?”
“…Ah, perhaps it wasn’t your father; maybe it was your mother who was the troll? Hmm… that’s quite a taste you have.”
Feigning exaggerated sighs to hide the fatigue from my earlier exertion.
“Cutting so close to the bone…!”
“What will you do? Do you think you can swing that spear properly with that arm?”
I shot her a mocking middle finger as Belita struggled to suppress her rage.
Having had her shoulder muscle nearly sliced off, she wouldn’t be able to use her right arm properly.
It must hurt badly even to flinch; there’s no way she’d swing that spear with full force. Absolutely no way.
…It’s not like the muscle is gone; it’s just a clean cut, so can’t she just bear the pain and move on?
What am I even saying here?
The sword injury isn’t something you can downplay.
Even when it’s a mere superficial cut, just a bit of flesh cut can cause pain and blood loss that severely degrades one’s condition; and this is deep enough to cut through muscle!
Forcing a body with sliced muscles to move or enduring massive blood loss while dragging on is something only superhumans could manage.
Even seasoned adventurers and knights possess abilities that vastly exceed those of average people, yet when their muscles are deeply cut and torn by a sword, they’d instantly become temporary incapacitated.
So now, the only thing to be cautious about would be her left arm.
‘Alright, I can win this…!’
Having figured out her acceleration ability’s weakness.
An arm that can barely move.
Belita’s strength was massively diminished by allowing me to land one blow, and now she was weakened to the point where I could calculate my chances of winning all on my own.
Should’ve paid more attention to her armor.
With only the left shoulder protected, as soon as she took a hit to the right shoulder, that power fries itself, right?
That’s karma. Pure karma.
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