Volume 2 – The World Sneered
By the time Mary and Ami had started fighting Chariot, Calaria and Cutie were also facing off against Ox.
Ox used Power to bizarrely enlarge the upper half of his body.
He was holding a large sword, but it looked like a children’s toy in his hands.
Thump, thump. He walked towards Calaria as the ground rumbled.
“Machinaneus, dual-wield.”
She transformed her rifle into two handguns and aimed at Ox.
His current Sorcery Rating was over 30,000.
Considering that it was normally 12,000, it seemed like Power allowed him to voluntarily activate an ability similar to Hanged Man’s.
Its versatility was definitely too high.
There had to be conditions or restrictions, and weak points.
“Lady Francis…… Lady Franciiiiis!”
Ox shouted in a strange voice while swinging at Calaria.
She jumped back and the blade swung down to hit the empty ground.
The ground broke open.
The stones scattering around scraped Calaria’s cheek and faint red blood started seeping out of the fresh wound.
“That was like a bullet.”
“Don’t…… get in my waaaaaay!”
Ox brushed off Empress’s dog, which bit him from behind.
The familia being brushed off by Ox’s arms exploded like balloons and disappeared.
But the practitioner, Cutie, was still there.
“Unforgivable! Unforgivable! Unforgivableeee! Why!? Why did Lady Francis have to die!? Who did it!? Why didn’t anyone protect her!?”
Ox’s mind was in disarray because of Lover’s powers and he rampaged with nothing but thoughts of Francis in his head.
Right now, everything he saw was an enemy to him.
He single-mindedly swung his sword, swung, and kept swinging.
He was not using sorcery.
He was just going berserk with his body strengthened by the arcana of Power.
But he could cut the sky, sever objects at a distance, and turn small stones into bullets by smashing the ground.
Calaria facing off against him fervently fought back with her two handguns but she could not even cause any scratch wounds.
It felt like she was fighting some massive boulder.
Meanwhile, Calaria’s injuries only kept increasing.
“It’s madness to exchange blows with him, but I can’t hurt him in any other way!”
She wanted to fight from a distance, if possible.
But seeing as she could not damage him with long-barrel mode, she had no other choices.
“Machinaneus, gauntlet! I’ll cut him with Mystica!”
Her gun transformed into a gauntlet.
She then pulled out a sword and immediately started charging it with mana from her gauntlet.
“I detest the humanity that failed to protect Lady Francis! I detest the world that could not protect Lady Francis!”
Ox’s words and actions felt a little saner compared to the start.
Lover’s poison was probably weakening as time passed.
Ox was too much to handle if he could recover his sanity on top of using Power.
Calaria wanted to finish this fight before then, and after rolling on the ground while dodging a few swings……
“OVERDRIVE, READY.”
Almost at the same time along with Mystica’s announcement, she attacked Ox.
“Take this, my greatest firepower!”
A sword crackling with mana approached the nape of Ox’s neck.
But Ox also swung his sword downward at around the same time.
The thin-edged sword and the wide-width sword clashed as the resulting flash of light lit up the entire village for just a moment, and both Calaria and Ox’s fields of vision whited out.
Their sight returned.
Their powers were almost equal.
They were both resisting, neither of them able to push the other.
“This is my deadliest attack……!”
Calaria spoke bitterly while her arms trembled.
Indeed, this was just a normal swing of the sword for Ox.
In contrast, it was a trump card with a lot of mana spent on it for Calaria.
The fact that these were equal in power made Calaria feel hopeless.
It was going to take time until the sorcery sword Mystica recharged.
On the other hand, Ox was already getting ready for his next move.
Calaria frantically tried to jump backwards.
But his sword was a little faster.
“Laaaaady Fraaaaaancis!”
Blood vessels even thicker than Calaria’s hips emerged in his arms as the hilt was crushed by his fingers, and Ox’s sword swung down at Calaria.
“My special megafauna, go and save that girl!”
Then, the animal Cutie created blocked his attack.
The animal blocking the attack was an elephant a house transformed into.
When it clashed against Ox’s massive body from the side, he lost his balance and staggered.
Calaria used this opportunity to withdraw.
“Sorry, thanks.”
“No, I was too late. Large-sized animals take time to create.”
Cutie decided that middle-sized animals lacked in power and was working on her familia.
A few small private houses lined up the village.
Their size was the reason Empress’s powers worked on them.
However, Ox only staggered.
He was still holding his sword in his hand.
He swung on an elephant and severed its head in two from the top.
“I said it was special. You can’t stop it with one attack!”
Half of the elephant’s body was cut in two from the head, but it still continued moving.
It raised its front feet high and shouted while trying to crush Ox.
But it moved too sluggishly, and when Ox noticed this, he easily moved it down with his sword.
He stabbed the corpse with his fingers using his left hand, lifted it up, and threw it at Cutie.
“Cutie, watch out!”
Calaria stepped in and blocked it with her gauntlet wall.
“Thanks. I lost one, but this is still far from being over!”
Cutie held her arms up in front of herself and this time, two elephants appeared from the darkness of the night.
Ox grasped his sword and got ready as two animals approached him from two sides.
He was clearly back to his senses.
The two familia were probably going to be crushed by his now even sharper attacks.
“OVERDRIVE, READY.”
Then, the sorcery sword Mystica finished charging.
Calaria grasped the sword’s hilt in its sheath and took a forward-bent posture.
She then started running towards Ox, combining speed and power to draw her sword and slash at the same time.
“Uaaaah!”
“Your swordsmanship is lacking!”
Calaria’s slash created thunder but the attack was stopped by Ox’s sword swinging downward.
The clash created a thunderous roar.
A flash of light surged forth.
Almost at the same time, Cutie’s elephant was about to collide against Ox’s body.
He reached out with his left hand, and crushed the elephant’s head, immobilizing it.
But he received another tackle without being able to defend against it.
Ox was sent flying by the heavyweight class animal and groaned, ‘Hnngh!’
Calaria’s sword was still clad in mana.
“Now!”
She thrusted with all her power.
The sharp sword’s edge planted into Ox’s neck.
Just a little more, a few more centimeters, and she could cut his carotid artery-
But, unfortunately, the sensation she felt from the hilt she held with both hands was dull.
It was like she was fighting a foe made of rubber.
The ‘thrust’ into a single point was being dispersed throughout Ox’s entire body as a ‘shock’.
Ox staggered again after receiving a blow to his neck and almost fell, but did not suffer any ‘injuries’.
“Aah, these feelings for Lady Francis filling up my heart…… I see, it was because of Lover’s powers……”
Perhaps feeling some pain, Ox pushed down on his neck and loudly sighed, ‘Pheew’.
“That was close. I did not expect the princess’s side to make the first attack. If my love for Lady Francis was just a little weaker than it is now, I could even be dead right now.”
“I don’t think you need to worry. I’m sure after fighting you that you’re not going to die, no matter what kind of a trap we set up.”
“Indeed. It’s obvious from your appearance already, but your body is too strong. Maybe you can give me some of your powers too?”
“Dear me, that’s not true. In fact, I’m in a hurry to win before the trick is revealed.”
He focused his strength into his lower body.
His muscles, though strong, were still ‘human’, but they started to suddenly swell.
His skin went transparent after stretching and became red with the color of his muscles.
Large blood vessels rose to the surface and his heartbeats became visible.
His figure with only the muscles of the upper half of his body enlarged was unbalanced and comical, but he looked strange after it spread through his entire body as well.
His height crossed 3 meters, and looking up at him, his head was hidden behind his pectoral muscles.
“I’m going to give it my all now.”
Right after declaring so, Ox assailed Calaria at great speed.
“Damn monster……!”
She turned her back and ran from her enemy, who was disproportionately fast for his massive body.