3
It was a gleaming dance of pale-blue light, small fragments of ice only barely visible to the eye—Icicle Line, a barrier of ice born of Emilia’s overwhelming magic power.
“I just want to check one thing.”
Deploying a limited field of mana through which she channeled her magic power, Emilia created a type of barrier before calling out to the man in the center who was scratching at the eyepatch covering his left eye.
“Ahhh? Go ahead and ask, hotness.”
“My name is Emilia. Just Emilia. Didn’t we just have to make you move one step? You were reeeally running around just now.”
After introducing herself, Emilia voiced the obvious question.
Before the fight started, Stick Swinger had definitely said “try to make me move even one step from this spot.” Technically, he had already lost. During the battle with Julius, he had run all around the room in every direction.
But the man just shrugged.
“Whoa there, don’t go gettin’ super literal on me now. I just said that in the heat of the moment. That shit happens. Sometimes you just wanna say something cool without any special meaning to it. That’s all it is. You get it, don’t you? Ah, I guess not, since you’re a babe. And a hottie at that. You should stay with me tonight.”
“Sorry, I don’t really understand what you are saying. And also, I’m sure I can’t win even if I fight you.”
“E-Emilia…?”
Despite calling upon her vast magic power and fully ready to fight, Emilia still made that declaration without any hesitation. Hearing that, Stick Swinger’s eyes widened, and Subaru struggled to just say her name as he froze on the spot.
She apologized to Subaru before continuing.
“You seem reeeally strong. I could tell just by watching. But we still have to get through this examination somehow. So could you please give us some way we can win?”
“ ”
“If I can make you move one step, then that’s a win for us. Let’s have that be the challenge… Is that okay?”
The man fell silent as Emilia made her proposition. Subaru was blown away by the terms. It was too absurd and utterly shameless.
Stick Swinger was silent, thinking for a moment about that request…
“Kah!”
He laughed, his teeth grinding together. His blue eyes opened wide as he looked at Emilia.
“—Nice. I don’t hate that. You got guts sayin’ something like that to me. You’re the biggest idiot I’ve seen since Tricia. I like you.”
“Does that mean we passed the examination?”
“Don’t get carried away! But fine. I can’t help but put on a show for a babe like you. I’ll let you have it your way.”
“So…”
“If you can make me move even one step, then it’s your win!”
Hearing that, Emilia nodded and then turned her gaze to Subaru.
“Take care of Anastasia and Julius. Heal them.”
“W-wait! You saw what just happened, right?! If you go in without a plan…”
“It’s okay. He doesn’t seem to be trying to kill us… And I’m going to try going all out, too.”
Emilia was fired up, brushing off Subaru’s attempt to stop her. She took a step forward with a determined look on her face as she pointed both of her arms at Stick Swinger.
With this much distance between them, she could unleash her magic on him without fear of retaliation.
“Hey, hotness, that ain’t very ladylike.”
“I learned from my knight to do everything I…can!”
Stick Swinger crossed his thick arms and grinned broadly as he stood there in an overwhelmingly disadvantageous position.
Aiming right at his smile, Emilia raised her voice on the last syllable, unleashing a stream of ice weapons in the glimmering field of crystals, accompanied by the crackling sound of the atmosphere freezing.
Swords, spears, axes, halberds, arrows, all sorts of weapons.
Icebrand Arts: Icicle Line. Using her extreme levels of magic power, she could cause untold destruction in a confined space. It was a powerful move that Subaru had thought up, and she was activating it now.
“Ey! Ya!”
It was a silly shout, but in the next moment, the scene that unfolded was anything but.
As she shouted, the sharp ice weapons she had pointed at Stick Swinger all hurtled toward him from all directions.
Faced with that, he unleashed a barrage of slashes—or rather, chopstick strikes—of overwhelming force.
“Ngh. Emilia…!”
While that was happening, Subaru had run over to Julius and Anastasia like Emilia asked.
At a glance, Anastasia’s unconsciousness was due to what Echidna had been worried about: straining her body too much. Her nosebleed had already stopped, and there were no obvious external wounds. And even for how one-sidedly Julius had been battered, there were no wounds that were life-threatening.
But the fact that he had been hit so many times was proof that if his opponent had been wielding a sword, he would have been killed more than a hundred times over.
“The two of them will be fine, I suppose. But…”
“I know.”
He cut off Beatrice, who had also come over to check on them.
They had confirmed their safety. But the beast who had done that to them was the same man Emilia was currently butting heads with…
“Kah!”
He seemed to be enjoying himself as he swung his chopsticks, catching a fragment of ice in his mouth and biting down on it. In that one swing, he tore an ice sword and ice ax that were flying at him in half.
The broken ice weapons glowed faintly for a moment before dissipating, creating a light show that only served to illuminate the beautiful savage’s rampage, making the scene look like a fever dream.
But even while doing all that…
“…He isn’t moving…”
“Once I get goin’, you can be sure I’m gonna make a show of it all the way to the end. Have some manners. If a man can’t show off while he straddles the line between life and death, then when else is he gonna do it?”
Laughing scornfully at Subaru’s words, Stick Swinger was practically humming to himself as he intercepted all the magic. And while his upper body was moving wildly, his lower body was not. Both legs were planted, immovable as mountains.
Both Subaru and Emilia came to the conclusion that it would just be a deadlock at that rate.
“—Ugh, hyaah!!!”
And so, to break the stalemate, Emilia charged in bravely. Her slender frame danced as she swung her arms up, creating an enormous battle-ax made of ice. Emilia spun as she slammed it home at him from above.
“Ka-ka!”
He thrust his chopsticks straight forward in the battle-ax’s swing. The slash fell, and he ever so slightly deflected its path with the chopsticks, making it just barely slip past him and crash into the floor.
There was a violent shock and burst of air as the ice battle-ax was shattered by a chopstick. But at the same time, Emilia let go of the ax and swung the halberd that was following close behind her, immediately chaining the next attack.
“Ey! Ya! Torya! Urya! Urya urya! Yaaa!”
A blow with the halberd, a twin blade slash, a longsword’s slice, a katana’s draw, a whip’s crack, an ax’s slam—she struck with every possible attack she could think of, but they were all easily defeated.
Naturally, it wasn’t because Emilia was lacking in technique.
Subaru was the one who had thought to combine Emilia’s vast magic power and her combat abilities in Icebrand Arts, and he could say without reservation that this fighting style fully utilized Emilia’s abilities.
Given that it wasn’t effective, Subaru would have liked to do something to support her, but…
“…Subaru.”
Beatrice was holding his hand tightly, and she was surely feeling the same thing he was.
There was simply no opening to intervene. That was a testament to the saturation of magic and weapons that Emilia had created.
And at the heart of that explosion of violence stood the incomprehensible monster who called himself Stick Swinger, dealing with everything that came at him without taking a single step.
If he tried to force his way in without waiting for his chance, Subaru would just end up distracting Emilia. It stung, but he could not move until her stamina started to reach its limit.
In that deadlock, an unexpected change suddenly happened.
“Hngh! Ey! Hyah!”
Emilia was using twin blades, unleashing a double slash aimed at his neck from both left and right. He dodged by ducking his head, only to be met by the back swing, hoping to catch him on the rebound.
“Whoa!”
Bending his knees, he dodged the twin blades by leaning his back almost all the way to the ground. He was supporting his whole body just on his sturdy ankles while Emilia, who had swung and missed, could not control her momentum and stumbled.
It was the first critical opening that Emilia had shown in the battle—and the man’s body bounced upward as he swung his chopsticks up at Emilia.
In that instant, he flashed his most sharklike grin yet, leaning forward…
“You’re open.”
And using his chopsticks, he raised her breasts upward.
“Wh—?”
She had removed the cloak she wore in the desert and was back to her usual white outfit. The man grinned vulgarly as he used the chopsticks to fondle her breasts obscenely.
“Perks of fightin’ a babe. Don’t go getting mad at—”
“Hyah!”
“Bwa…?!”
Emilia clasped her hands over her head; an ice glove formed around them, which she swung down, hitting Stick Swinger on the crown of his head.
It was hard enough that the ice shattered in a single blow with a loud, hard thud. The force of the impact made him shout and cradle his head as he rolled around.
“That huuurts! Th-the hell’s wrong with you?! Usually a woman’s moves will get duller if someone does something like that! You didn’t hesitate at all?!”
“—? What, you just touched my body? You were full of openings.”
“The hell?! Who raised you?! What were your parents thinkin’?!”
Rubbing his head, Stick Swinger was sitting cross-legged on the ground as he howled. Emilia blinked in surprise and touched where the chopsticks had caressed her.
“…Did I…say something weird?”
“Hey! Do somethin’ about her! Take her outside once in a while! Lame ass! You’re her chaperone, right?! Get your act together already! That hurt, damn it…!”
“Quit screwing around yourself! The hell do you think you’re doing to Emilia?! Pervert! Shitstain! Archbishop!”
Subaru roared back at Stick Swinger for copping a feel. In that moment at least, he was outraged, forgetting all his fear and awe of the wild and outrageously powerful man.
“Subaru, calm down! Betty understands how you feel, but look closer!”
“Ahh?! Look at what…”
“His feet.”
Beatrice pulled his sleeve, snapping Subaru back to his senses. And doing like Beatrice said and looking at the man’s feet, his eyes widened.
“He moved. And not just one step, either.”
“Ah! He did! Hooray! I win!”
The man fell silent as Emilia put her hands together and leaped in the air.
In response to her celebration, her ice magic transformed into flowers, blooming in celebration of her victory.
She had cleared the condition he had set of making him move a step.
It was clear for anyone to see. So long as the man in question didn’t contest it.
“No matter how it happens, a win is a win… So what are you going to do?”
Unlike Emilia, Subaru didn’t have high expectations for the man’s willingness to honor what he said. It was hard to expect much of him given all that had already happened.
But despite Subaru’s concerns…
“Ah, no helpin’ it. I said what I said. Gettin’ tripped up by wantin’ to perv a bit ain’t funny, but it is what it is.”
“Y-you’ll accept it…?!”
“The hell do you think I am? If I disputed that, then what would be the point of showin’ off in the first place? Just make me look bad. There’d be no recoverin’. Not keep my word? How would I get any women?”
“At the moment, I’m not sure how you could look any worse given the way you lost…”
“Piss off, small fry! You heard me! Quit howlin’, small fry. Anyway, hotness there won. I’ll let her through. That’s what I said, so them’s the rules.”
He violently rubbed his head, but Stick Swinger acknowledged his loss without any arguing over it.
Is he gracious or terrible?
Either way, though, Subaru did not intend to push the question.
Julius and Anastasia both had been knocked out fighting him, but most likely, it wasn’t anything a trip to the green room wouldn’t fix.
There really wasn’t much to the examination for this floor, though…
“—So you next, small fry? Or one of the two rugrats?”
“Eh?”
Just as Subaru was thinking about being able to go up to the next floor, his eyes widened when he heard what the man said.
—The next instant, it almost smelled like the air itself was burning.
This man’s presence couldn’t even be compared to before. Subaru was slow to understand what was going on as his instincts cried out at the dramatic shift, as if everything up until now had only been child’s play.
“There are seven people in the tower. Your girl is the first one to pass.”
“ ”
“So who’s gonna try to get past me next?”
The examination for Electra, the second floor of the Great Pleiades Library.
Time: conditionally unlimited. Attempts: conditionally unlimited. Challengers: conditionally unlimited.
—Passed: Emilia.
—Not yet passed: Subaru, Beatrice, Julius, Anastasia, Meili, Ram.
—The examination continues.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login