Volume 2 – The World Sneered
“Are you losing your nerves, Calaria Turquoise!?”
Ox shouted in a deep voice.
Calaria turned her back and ran away as fast as she could, but their steps were different, and so was their speed.
The distance between them closed in an instant, and he reached out to Calaria’s swinging black hair.
Then, Calaria jumped and suddenly changed course.
Her hair slipped away from Ox’s hand.
Evasion through minimal movement – but this compact move was only a stopgap.
“Hnnnh!”
Ox immediately kicked Calaria.
This attack combining weight and sharpness was like a bomb shell that would explode whatever it hit.
It was impossible to block.
Impossible to evade.
It was instant death if hit – but he felt a strange sensation in his right foot that he used as an axle.
(Is something touching my ankle?)
It was a thin wire.
The trap was already activated when he noticed it, and a stake with a sharp tip landed on Ox’s lower back.
It was not very powerful.
It was very sharp, but it was not something that could pierce through Ox’s powerful muscles.
But the attack slightly warped the trajectory of his kick.
Calaria bent down and evaded the attack.
Ox kicked the empty air as the shockwave slightly tore Claria’s clothes.
She then turned around and smashed the stake that was planted into Ox with the palm of her hand.
The strike was strengthened by her gauntlet, and she wanted to use it like a hammer.
But the stake was crushed and broke.
Calaria clicked her tongue and retreated.
Ox chased after her and reached out to try and crush her head.
(If I can’t reach her, then!)
When he noticed that his attack would not make it in time, he firmly clenched his hand.
“Uagh!?”
Thud! Calaria thought she heard the sound of something bursting open, and opened her eyes wide after feeling the shock of something hitting her head from the side.
The air that was compressed due to the high speed burst open and assailed her.
Krrrrk! She heard ringing in her ears, perhaps having had her eardrums broken, and a wave of pain rushed through her head.
Being blown off to the side, Calaria landed on one hand while clenching her teeth.
She then did a somersault using the strength of her arm, but Ox did not let this pass either.
“I got you!”
He raised his sword.
Then, a dog, rather, a flowerpot that had transformed into a dog, rushed towards his feet.
“You shouldn’t forget about me!”
Of course, a small-breed dog was not enough to stop Ox.
Instead of attacking directly, the dog buried itself in the ground behind Ox and caused an explosion.
“Hnnng, what!?”
Ox went down on his knees after the shock wave pushed him from behind.
Calaria used this time to distance herself from him again.
“So that was a trap too…… Of course, you would not commit to a surprise attack without any preparations.”
“Normally, it was a trap to stop you from running away.”
“I disappoint myself. I’m surprised you set up traps so far away from the cabin, it looks like I was too careless.”
“There is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a trap set up by the excellent staff of Majoram. It’s only natural that a man from the royal army wouldn’t notice it.”
“I don’t care about you making light of the royal army…… But!”
He turned his sword towards Calaria and shouted out loud.
“I won’t forgive you for saying I’m a man who could not protect Lady Francis!”
“I didn’t say anything like that.”
“Most of all, this fight is only the opening act. I can’t go down here before I kill Mary herself!”
“I’m upset you’re treating this as an opening act. Save those words for after you win.”
Calaria was obviously displeased by these words.
But for Ox, this was not a ‘conversation’ or anything like that.
It was a ‘performance’ to cheer himself up.
He did not care what others thought of him.
“You’re being hindered because you think of these as ‘traps’, or ‘surprise attacks’. Toys like these won’t work when I’m on guard against all directions! Hnnnnnh!”
Ox charged straight at Calaria.
He repeatedly escaped traps, like stakes, poison arrows, mines and pitfalls – and chased her while crushing it all with his boasted physical strength.
“He’s like a tank.”
“Lady Franciiiiis!”
His sword was not even meant to hit Calaria now, and instead smashed the ground some distance away.
The slash soared and tore the ground apart as it severed a private house in two.
Calaria dodged while shooting, and Ox nimbly slashed a second time.
She bent her body and evaded.
Then, she dodged the third attack by doing a somersault, and the fourth, and fifth attacks closed in on her in the air.
She transformed her rifle into a gauntlet and fended off the attacks by creating a wall.
But she could not fend everything off, and her shoulders were hurt.
Blood stained her maid outfit, but she landed without even changing the expression on her face.
“Uaaaah!”
Ox recklessly swung his sword.
A sword-wave in the shape of a crescent moon flew towards Calaria.
Cutie sent off countless birds at him, but their pecking was not enough to stop him.
In fact, they were blown off by the wind pressure created by Ox swinging his arms.
Unable to just watch, Cutie touched a house nearby and deployed a massive elephant again, but a full-power charge by the elephant was not even enough to stagger Ox.
“Out of my way!”
Of the countless slashes fired at Calaria, only one, a single-handed swing of the sword, tore the elephant apart and rendered it incapable of fighting.
“This is absurd…… How far can this man go!? Fine, I’m gonna have to be a wall!”
Cutie changed her strategy, putting the animal she created between Ox and Calaria.
She supported Calaria’s moves by obstructing the slashing attack.
It was a sword that split any large-size animal in one strike, but this obstruction decreased its power and speed.
As this continued, Calaria started having some more leeway in her moves.
She changed her rifle into two handguns for a third time, and continuously shot at Ox’s head.
She aimed at the one exposed part of his body that could not be trained – the ‘eyes’.
But Ox’s physical enhancement was coming from the arcana of Power.
Normal logic did not apply.
Even direct hits on his eyes, let alone damage him, did not even make him flinch.
(A fortress of meat, a moving disaster – Yeah, a monster like this is no match for the Empire or the Kingdom.)
He was young for a general.
According to Mary, he was not particularly popular either.
That meant he possessed such outstanding fighting power that he earned this high ranking anyway.
His entrance into a battlefield was enough to turn thousands, even tens of thousands of soldiers into lumps of meat in only minutes.
He was so strong that even an arcana user, who possessed a power that rivaled his, was in despair and unable to win.
“I told you to get out of my waaaaay!”
Ox finally lost his temper after running out of patience because of Empress’s familia obstructing him.
He threw his sword away, put his hands over his head and swung down onto the ground with all his might.
“Ugh, this is……!”
“You’re kidding me, he just hit the ground but – aaaah!”
The ground changed shape around him.
It hollowed out and the area around the center gradually rose up.
The rubble flying up and the bursting gale tore Cutie’s familia to shreds.
Naturally, Calaria and Cutie were not unscathed either.
Among the tempest, the small stones and rubble that turned into bullets ripped their bodies up.
The damage itself was not sorcery, so Calaria’s sorcery resistance was meaningless.
Further, it was impossible for her to defend herself completely even with her sturdy body.
Cutie transformed a part of her clothing into an animal and guarded herself, but stones cut her skin and their round surface broke her bones as their sharp tips hit her directly and pierced her body.
“Ugh…… This much…… power…… is ridiculous……”
She fell on her knees and blood started pouring onto the ground.
Calaria was barely standing up, but her maid outfit was full of holes, and her exposed skin was either shedding blood or she was internally bleeding.
Her ears had splintered and she could not open her right eye, and her hands loosely dangled while she held her guns.
“Ah…… Aah……! A-Aaaaagh!”
Calaria shouted to stir herself up, equipped her gauntlet, and gripped her sword.
“OVERDRIVE, READY.”
“I can…… I can still fight, Ox!”
A flash of mana was let loose from her unsheathed sword.
Ox slowly straightened himself up, looked at it and crushed it with one hand.
“I can still fight…… It must be the first time you’re saying those words after finding an equal opponent.”
“Ugh……”
“Your body is full of wounds and your swordsmanship is getting dull. Did you think you could cut me with an attack like this? Now, it’s time to end this!”
He wanted to strike Calaria and settle this.
He focused strength into his legs and got ready to step forward.
But his right leg felt too heavy.
“What……?”
When he looked at it, he saw that there were a large number of ants swarming on it.
“Bugs!?”
There were a crazy number of ants.
But was a swarm of ants really enough to make him feel ‘heavy’ with his current physique?
Cutie was limply laying on the ground ahead of him.
“Compared to animals…… I think these are stronger…… They’re not cute, but still…… Heh…… Agh……”
She spoke with vacant eyes as blood poured out of her mouth.
Each single grain of sand on the ground she touched transformed into ants and clung onto Ox’s foot.
The difference between using animals and insects was that she could focus all her mana on one part of her foe’s body, his ‘foot’.
That was an effective method, even against Ox who now had over 30,000 Sorcery Rating.
“I can’t move!? Even with my arcana of Power!”
“You’re getting scared…… Ox.”
“What!?”
Calaria changed her sorcery guns into a rifle.
She aimed at the unmoving Ox, and fired an especially powerful bullet.
“Nugh! Shit, then I’ll just focus all my mana on my foot!”
“What’s wrong? You have the overwhelming advantage here. Is there some reason you’re starting to panic right now?”
“Ugh, shut uuup!”
He smashed the ground with his fist and stones flew up.
But such a transparent attack would not work on Calaria.
She easily dodged and continued shooting.
“Guaaaagh!”
Then, Ox’s arm was shot and cracked open.
Calaria chuckled to herself.
“Phew…… I see that there was a limit to you using so much power, after all.”
Ox started bleeding as he clenched his teeth and his face showed an expression of pain.
Then, his foot that was swarmed by ants made a cracking sound, his muscles split, and his bones smashed apart.
“Uuuugh, damn you and your timing, Empress!”
A smile appeared on Cutie’s face when he saw Ox in pain.
Calaria looked at him and spoke.
“It’s simple. The restriction of Power’s arcana is a ‘time limit’. Around 5 minutes at most. It looks like you reached your limit faster than you expected because of your sense of time being distorted after you lost your sanity.”
“So…… So what?”
“Keep your bluffing to your physique.”
“Are you trying to say this physique is a fabrication? But, there’s a reason I’m a general!”
Ox smashed his own body and threw his armor away, and stood in front of Calaria with his ‘original body’.
“I don’t have to use mana, my love for Lady Francis is enough!”
His sword fell to the ground.
He attacked Calaria with his clenched fists alone.
She transformed Machinaneus into a gauntlet and faced his attack.
Their fists clashed.
Ox’s finger bones broke and his wrist twisted in an impossible direction.
“Nuh, aaaaagh!”
“One-sided love is nothing but trouble, that is not real strength.”
“What the hell would you know about it!?”
He was not discouraged and attacked again with his other hand.
But the same thing repeated again.
Calaria smashed his fist with a counterattack.
“I may not know anything about it, but I can still see how ugly it is.”
“Uuugh…… Why, why!? I’m just trying to correct my mistakes!”
Perhaps having his spirits broken already, Ox fell on his knees.
Calaria looked down on him with cold eyes and clenched her sword.
“OVERDRIVE, READY.”
“Because you’re more twisted than anyone.”
The silver-colored sword, faintly glittering, swung down on him with no hesitation.
Wanting to make sure he could not get away, Calaria did not avert his eyes from him for even a single moment.
So it was clear.
Ox disappeared.
It was not that he moved too fast to see – he definitely vanished from before her eyes.
Calaria stopped her swing and stabbed the ground before quickly transforming her gauntlet into two handguns.
Then, she focused on a faint sense of presence and used her sixth sense to shoot.
“There, Magician!”
The shooting ball of light tore through the night.
“Whoa!?”
Holding Digi, Ox was surprised by this accurate attack and tried to dodge by twisting his body.
Although a direct hit was averted, his shoulder was still gouged out.
“Uuugh! Crap……!”
“I won’t let you get awaaaay!”
Calaria shot again and pressed on.
Digi held her cane and warped again to maintain a distance.
But she was not used to pain, and her expression looked very bitter.
“That was pretty good timing, were you watching me?”
“Ugh, I just came to save you because World got angry at me…… I got the short end of the stick.”
“Answer me, Magician!”
“Like I said. I don’t care about this guy’s life. But, that person said that he wants this guy to live because it’s more interesting that way.”
“Does World think he’s a scriptwriter or something?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“That’s not good enough. I think Chariot will lose, so we lost two arcanas. Give me a break.”
“It’s just a matter of timing. We’re going to destroy you. World too, of course!”
“Phew, cool. I’m in pain, so I’ll be leaving now. Goodbye.”
Digi waved and vanished.
Calaria did not pointlessly chase her.
She knew from her previous fight that chasing Magician after she started to focus on fleeing was pointless.
This time, she decided it was enough that she at least hit an attack.
“Shit…… I was so close to killing you…… Aah…… Aah…… Ah, this silence is making me realize how exhausted I am……!”
Her body was full of wounds, and she had spent a lot of mana.
She used her sorcery sword at full power many times, and she felt her own growth during the battle, but a sense of powerlessness also descended on her.
If Ox’s arcana did not have a time limit, Calaria and Cutie would have certainly died here.
Calaria staggered and walked with frail steps, and sat down next to Cutie.
“……Don’t look at me.”
Cutie was hugging herself and waiting for her recovery to finish.
She was embarrassed to be seen like this, and looked away from Calaria while her cheeks blushed.
“I’m not looking, just waiting.”
“It’s the same thing! It’s embarrassing to be watched like this, and it’s embarrassing to hug you, so it’s double!”
“You’re getting pretty used to fighting compared to earlier, though. Empress is pretty strong too.”
“Well…… I realized that it depends on how I use it. Creating that swarm of ants felt pretty disgusting, though.”
But that was the strongest tactic she had now, so she would probably use it again in the future.
“They may start calling you Cutie the Bug Master soon.”
“I’ll reject that with all my being……”
“The world is cruel, they won’t listen.”
“I don’t want this! Give me a cuter power, God!”
Cutie threw a tantrum.
Calaria could not help but smile while she watched.
Mary and Ami’s fight on the other side of the village also ended.
The results were one victory and one tie. They had regrets, but they successfully reduced the enemy’s fighting power.
They decided to think about it optimistically like that.