Flowing Water
Two heads spat out two different sounds.
———GRRAAAaaa!!
———KYAAAaa!!
Spittle sprayed thick with the roars. Bloodshot eyes bulged. Muscle trembled in violent spasms.
It was an extremely threatening display of force—yet Alice didn’t so much as blink. She simply stood there and watched the orc.
Behind her, Nicoletta slid her sword back into its scabbard and took hold of Pina’s arm.
“We should fall back.”
“Ah—yes!”
Staying at Alice’s side now would only get in the way.
Just as Alice had said, it was time to watch a hunter fight.
That skill which had left Guido and Evan in awe—what would it look like up close?
Nicoletta glanced back over her shoulder.
Alice made no reckless move.
She was yielding the first strike.
Kwaddeuk—!
The orc’s foot crushed down hard into the earth. Under that pressure the ground twisted and heaved upward.
Then the orc kicked off the floor and leapt straight at Alice.
Its thick fist homed in on her head. It looked as though it closed the distance in an instant—but dodging it was no great difficulty.
Alice let her greatsword hang low.
Taat—! She thrust a foot forward and shot her body clean underneath the airborne orc.
The orc’s fist punched into the spot where Alice had been standing. Cracks spiderwebbed out from the impact, and the ground shattered to pieces.
An attack like that—even once—would be fatal.
Alice fixed the orc with a sharp, open-eyed stare.
Having missed with its fist, the orc jammed four fingers—thumb excluded—straight into the earth and spun its waist with savage force.
Like an excavator scooping dirt, it heaved up a mass of frozen soil and hurled the whole of it at Alice.
The frozen earth came at her like a single solid boulder.
Alice extended her greatsword and smashed it aside.
Teong—! The ice-hard clod of dirt rang with a bright, clean note as it bounced away.
From behind the deflected mass the orc burst out. The dirt had been bait. This time it would not miss.
Its fist drove at Alice once more.
But Alice had already read it. She had faced thugs like this more times than she could count.
She stepped forward and ducked. The fist skimmed past her.
The palm gripping the greatsword’s hilt had gone white. The Hunger Blade’s appetite was draining her strength.
So she would put everything into a single strike. Holding her breath, Alice drove the greatsword up from below.
Chwaaak!! The keen edge raked across the orc’s chest—left wide open by the extended punch.
———GRAAaa!!
The orc groaned in pain and twisted its body. At the same time it swung its arm in a vicious arc.
It meant to swat Alice clean away with its forearm—but she had already finished her attack and rolled aside, so the arm only carved empty air.
Alice wiped a fleck of blood from her cheek with the back of her hand and let out a buoyant breath.
“Haa…….”
As the Hunger Blade drank blood, its appetite subsided—and in its place it offered a gift. Power.
The sensation of spent strength flooding back defied description. It was like tasting food after a long, long hunger.
And that was not the only thing stoking Alice’s fighting spirit.
The thrill that rose in a razor-thin situation—that tightrope sensation—was the pure joy of the hunt.
The orc leapt high again. This time it extended a leg and landed lightly. Two punches followed in succession.
Each blow, packed with raw power and thrown again and again, was a one-hit kill. Alice eased backward in time with the rhythm, slipping every strike.
Irritated by Alice’s constant evasion, the orc opened its palm and swept its arm in a broad arc.
Not a punch this time—a grab.
A palm easily over a meter across made a sound like wind simply by moving.
The moment it caught her, she would be handled the way a cousin on a holiday treats a toy—limbs torn clean off. Becoming a human plastic model was not on her agenda.
Dodging would have been ideal, but she was too close and the speed was too high. Evading was the riskier option.
So she would answer it.
Alice stamped the ground hard and drew up the power of her essence.
Reinforce. A dark-crimson monster aura writhed and spread through her arms. Then she swung the greatsword to meet the open palm.
Jjeoeong—! Palm and Hunger Blade collided, exploding with a sonic boom.
The orc’s hand was shoved back—and Alice, unable to fully absorb the shock, was driven back as well.
She shook out her tingling hand.
She had managed to cancel the grab, but trading raw strength with a monster like this still put a brutal strain on the muscles. Less than when she had stopped Neveumano’s downward smash with Flowing Water—but still.
“Huu…….”
Alice settled her breathing again.
The cold winter air filled her lungs. She always looked for the best move available.
There was no need to grow impatient just because she couldn’t land an attack. Managing her stamina was enough.
She had killed this opponent more times than she could count.
Alice raised her greatsword.
“……I see. Truly remarkable.”
From the moment she had fallen back, Nicoletta had not taken her eyes off Alice for a second.
“She never attacks first. And yet she refuses to accept even a single hit. It feels like she’s toying with a child who just charges in blindly.”
With calm eyes, Nicoletta analyzed the hunter’s fight.
Alice never moved first. She regulated her breathing, waited right where she stood for the orc to come at her, and only then answered with an attack.
Covering her mouth, Nicoletta murmured to herself.
“Right—fighting a person and fighting a monster are different. Monsters just keep coming at you. Tsk. Easy to say, though. Not just anyone can do that. It’s like she already knows everything the opponent is going to do. Is this the ‘reading’ the Captain was talking about?”
Mutter, mutter.
Beside her, Pina—who had been standing quietly—broke into a cold sweat.
Is she talking to herself? Am I supposed to answer?
Whether Pina answered or not, Nicoletta’s monologue rolled on.
“Not a trace of fatigue. Is it because she’s only countering that she doesn’t tire? No—no. Even responding drains strength……. There must be something special at work.”
Simply by watching, Nicoletta had already sensed the Hunger Blade’s power.
Her eye for combat was that sharp. She grasped the overall shape of the battle, and in her mind she began sketching how she herself ought to act later.
This fight belonged entirely to Alice’s flow. But a single monster attack could shatter that flow—so she moved with absolute caution, never surrendering the initiative.
Never growing impatient, no matter the situation. That was the hunter’s mindset.
“But if she keeps going like this, she won’t be able to finish it.”
Monsters weren’t fools. Once they realized reckless attacks only cost them, they grew careful with their next ones.
In a flow like this, how did you land a decisive blow?
……The thing everyone had been raving about still hadn’t shown itself.
Nicoletta recalled what Guido and Evan had said.
‘That worm cracked its huge body down like a whip—and she just bounced it off to the side. Made me wonder if she was even human.’
‘The yeti brought its foot down with everything it had, and she took that too. I thought she was dead for sure……. Are people from the future just built different?’
There was a common thread in both accounts.
Not the uncertainty about whether she was human. The shared point was the counter.
Flowing Water flickered through Nicoletta’s mind.
But that was a discarded technique. Deflecting a monster’s attack flow back to return the shock—fine in theory, but the slightest mistake meant taking the full price with your entire body.
If you had spare lives, maybe. Living only one life, no one had the luxury of using something that dangerous.
……So was she just going to keep dodging forever?
Then the orc roared with savage force.
———GRRRRAAAA!!
———KRRRRAAAA!!
A shockwave rolled outward and shoved Alice back.
The orc slammed the ground in frustration—then did something bizarre. Without warning, it began thrashing its own left head with its right arm, beating it half to death.
Pina, who had been silent until now, finally spoke.
“…W-why is it doing that?”
Nicoletta had no answer for her either.
“I wonder…….”
Before long the left and right arms began fighting each other, each driven by a separate will.
Alice watched the spectacle from a safe distance. Getting half-involved and then swept up in it would be pure disaster.
Then the orc’s right arm seized the bull-like horn of the left head.
———GRaaak!?
Bbaddeuk—!!
It snapped the horn clean off in a single motion, and the contest was decided.
The left head—face ruined, horn broken—went cross-eyed as if it had blacked out. But the right head was still very much awake.
———KIYAAaaa!!
Kwang-kwang-kwang!! It slammed the horn into the ground again and again. Now fully in control, the right head raised the horn like a weapon, ready to keep fighting with it.
“…Hmph.”
Alice snorted at the sight.
Paaang! The orc swung its arm. The long bull horn, fueled by the enraged orc’s monstrous arm strength and the power of its essence, sent out a blade of sharp wind.
Nicoletta’s eyes went wide.
“That’s a sword wind.”
The pattern had changed.
Once it had a means of attacking at range, the whole idea of yielding the first move no longer held.
Kung—!
As if to quiet Nicoletta’s worry, the sound of Alice stamping her foot rang out loud and clear.
Through the long fight, the Luga-lac essence had filled to the brim.
Reinforce. Monster power of the same kind wrapped her entire body and drew Alice’s full strength to the surface.
From that moment she was like a berserker.
The cautious, probing fight of constant evasion vanished. She drove into the orc, packing in hits large and small without caring about the size of the damage—just pushing damage through.
Nicoletta blinked.
She’s drawing out monster power through the essence. Impressive application. You’d need to be used to controlling force……. So you can use it that way instead of sword aura.
This time she kept her mouth shut and thought it through carefully—because Pina wasn’t saying a word.
Alice’s assault continued, but the orc was no fool that would simply stand there and take it.
Shaking Alice off, the orc stepped back and raised the horn high in its right hand.
Then it gathered every scrap of strength in its limbs and leapt with everything it had.
A full-power jump—its speed was overwhelming.
There was a way to dodge. Time a throw of the body backward to the landing, and she wouldn’t get caught in it.
But what Alice chose was a counter. As if declaring she would not run from that spot, she raised her greatsword.
Nicoletta cried out in alarm.
“What are you doing?!”
It was dangerous.
If they collided head-on like this, greatsword or no, her entire body would be crushed flat.
Nicoletta clenched her fists.
Pina caught her by the shoulder.
“Believe in her, Knight.”
But the orc’s pattern was, in the end, extremely straightforward. It simply leapt and brought the horn down.
If it hadn’t been holding a horn, Alice would have found some way to fall back.
But because it was gripping the horn, she knew that in that state it could not grab the greatsword.
There was only one thing to do here.
Alice turned the sword a half-revolution.
At last, as the orc drove the horn straight down—
She twisted her whole body hard and brought the greatsword up.
Kkang—.
A clean, ringing sound rolled out, and Nicoletta’s mouth fell open.
Alice’s greatsword traced a wide, brilliant circle through the air.
In reverse, the orc’s horn tumbled sideways in an ugly freefall. The orc itself followed, plunging headfirst from sky to earth.
Flowing Water.
That was the miracle Guido and Evan had spoken of—and the one Pina believed in.
Nicoletta’s lips worked soundlessly.
“I-is that even a person?”
Did she have extra lives or something?
For a moment, she genuinely wondered whether they were the same species.