Chapter 17
Chapter 17
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Establishing the Hierarchy is a Major Matter
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Ari couldn't help but acutely realize her own mistake.
For a very brief moment, she had definitely felt it.
That distant realm she had never witnessed in her entire life.
'What have I done...'
By that point, the emotion called jealousy had long vanished from her heart.
Jealousy is something one can only harbor when they can imagine catching up to their opponent.
Just as an ordinary person cannot feel jealousy toward a storm, the same went for Ari.
She raised her head and gazed at Duke.
Death in its helmet was approaching, shadows draping across its face.
Only then did she grasp Duke's intention.
He would come at her with full power.
If not—
'Death.'
From Duke's perspective, Ari was nothing more than replaceable riffraff.
Even if Rex sheltered her, the karma she had piled up was far from repayable by mere death before that natural disaster.
'Kuht...'
There was only one way to survive: prove her usefulness.
From that instant, the nature of the sparring changed.
It was no longer a mutual exchange of recognition but a challenge that placed her very survival on the scales.
She began running in a circle around Duke.
Meanwhile, Duke simply stood motionless in place, staring straight ahead.
She gradually narrowed the circle until, from behind him, she thrust a hand blade at the nape exposed between his helmet and armor.
This, too, was an act of targeting a vital point to avoid in any spar.
Yet Duke calmly tilted his head slightly to the side, effortlessly evading the strike.
The hand blade aimed at his neck sailed past his shoulder, grazed the side of his helmet, and extended out in front of him.
He seized the outstretched hand over his shoulder and dipped his waist shallowly.
Using his shoulder as a fulcrum, her body soared into the air.
Duke even adjusted her airborne posture to make it easier for her to execute a proper landing roll.
Splat.
It was a clean shoulder throw, but she landed on her feet rather than her back.
Duke beckoned to her with his left hand.
"Again."
Still dazed and spacing out, she came to her senses and charged at Duke once more.
She targeted his solar plexus with both fists extended.
Once again, Duke twisted his body slightly and brushed her hand aside, dodging the attack.
"Again."
Two consecutive nullifications.
Ari knew full well that Duke had plenty of openings to counterattack in those brief intervals.
Nevertheless, Duke refrained from striking back.
He merely disrupted her stance, careful not to injure her.
At this point, she had no choice but to realize Duke's true intention.
'Ah...'
- "It's not a good habit to assume everyone judges their opponent by your own standards."
Duke's earlier words resurfaced in her mind.
She had naturally assumed Duke was displeased.
That was why she had gone all out to prove her worth.
But Duke wasn't angry in the slightest.
As if he had never forgotten the purpose of this spar from the start, he consistently accommodated her full efforts.
'If it were me...'
She would have already abandoned the spar and turned it into a fight to the death.
'Haha...'
She couldn't help but let out an involuntary chuckle.
'A perfect defeat.'
In skill, loyalty, character, and magnanimity of spirit—it was her utter and complete defeat.
A defeat that inspired not jealousy, but awe.
As a sign of acknowledging her defeat, she bowed her forehead toward Duke.
"I'm sorry, Sir Awik."
With her anger subsided, her hostility faded away.
However, seeing Ari's hostility wane, Duke couldn't conceal his disappointment.
'Ah, the newbie's realized reality...'
For the veteran, the third most enjoyable time had come to an end.
The happiest moments were precisely when the newbie, oblivious to everything, burned with competitive fire—yet Ari had realized the truth and pulled her punches.
'This means she won't fight me anymore.'
Duke's mood grew even more sullen.
But that lasted only a moment.
He realized it had been his misconception.
Her subsided hostility was rising once more.
It was a far more potent aura than just moments ago—undeniably so.
'Huh?'
Duke hurriedly assessed her realm.
When he realized her level had risen by one stage, he couldn't hide his elation.
'She... broke through the wall?'
The newbie had shattered her wall right before his eyes during the spar.
Duke quickly sought the cause of her breakthrough.
Though he was a man distant from anything scholarly, his eye for people was a final boss's virtue, honed to a reasonable degree.
Soon enough, he pinpointed the fateful encounter that had elevated her to level 30.
"You've learned humility."
"Thanks to you, Sir Awik."
The snarling teenage tigress from moments ago had vanished, replaced by a martial artist bearing the dignity of a mountain lord.
As Duke had said, she had awakened to humility.
"Thanks to you, the cat within us has learned the vastness of the world."
Duke shivered faintly beneath his cape.
If he weren't in final boss mode, he might have climaxed lightly by now.
As he pinched his thigh hard enough to bruise, she drew both fists to her waist.
Just as martial artists do before a bout, she saluted with crisp precision.
"This lowly one, Arabella. I boldly request of Sir Awik—please grant me the opportunity to broaden my horizons."
He could feel the competitive spirit from her that he had thought had faded.
No, it wasn't mere competitiveness.
'Will to fight.'
The corner of Duke's mouth twitched.
Competitiveness was the spirit of seizing victory from one's opponent.
Not a bad thing, but an emotion somewhat inappropriate to harbor against a vastly superior foe.
Put harshly, it was ignorance of one's place.
But the will to fight was different.
It was the spirit to challenge toward a goal, even knowing defeat was certain.
Duke discerned from her gaze exactly what she had set as the target of that will to fight.
"Normally... it would be insolence to wear this cape before a warrior like you, but in respect of your resolve, I shall keep it on."
She beamed at his words.
'As expected of Sir Awik!'
What insight—to grasp her unspoken intent without her even asking.
'Truly, no shortcomings as a master.'
Her breakthrough past the level 30 wall must have come from meeting her spiritual mentor, Duke, and awakening to humility.
She tightened the straps of her gauntlets even further.
'I must prove myself worthy of claiming him as my master.'
Of course, she knew full well how brazen she was being.
Respecting him now wouldn't erase the rudeness she had shown Duke up until recently.
But she offered no apology for it.
- "There's no need to apologize for attacks that aren't threatening."
As Duke had once said, he didn't mind her rudeness in the least.
Beyond ignoring killing intent, it meant he forgave even outright discourtesy.
An apology without cause would itself be rudeness, so she chose respect in its place.
"Here I go!"
Boom!
As she stomped the ground hard, a white aura began to rise from her body.
Beyond that white aura flecked with sparse black, there was the illusion of a white tiger roaring.
Toward her, Duke offered praise.
"Well-restrained spirit possession!"
Spirit possession.
The ultimate jutsu of the beastkin tribes.
A technique that explosively enhanced physical abilities by accepting the aura of their symbolic beast.
However, back in her second-rank days, she hadn't been able to use it.
'Because I didn't know restraint back then.'
Whenever she accepted the white tiger's power, she was devoured by its beastly instincts, managing only 10% uptake.
But in this moment, she achieved a leap to 70%.
Boom!
With the sound of air exploding, she charged at Duke.
Right before him, she stomped hard once more and thrust out her fist.
Duke deflected her attack with his left hand, dodging as before.
However, unlike earlier, her body slicing through empty air did not waver.
Duke praised her again.
"Excellent restraint."
Up until the previous bout, she hadn't been able to control her own body.
She believed herself the best.
Her powerful skills were unstoppable, her swift fists unavoidable.
Harboring such arrogant thoughts, her attacks lacked any restraint.
Thus, a single miss sent her body staggering from inertia, and even a light push collapsed her stance.
But not now.
She was carefully modulating her power, accounting for the possibility of him blocking or evading.
To draw a fighting game analogy...
'She's holding back moves with large post-hit frames.'
And engaging in psychological warfare without underestimating her foe.
In this short time, she had gained realizations beyond even Duke's expectations.
'Splendid.'
As a warrior—and as a newbie.
In respect for her, Duke began wrapping magic around his left hand.
'Direct telekinesis would be too harsh for a third-rank.'
Instead, he hooked it onto the straps of her gauntlets.
She resisted his telekinesis with mana, flicking it away.
But diverting her focus to the straps was precisely Duke's aim.
He didn't miss that minute gap, coiling his left arm around her extended arm.
Applying a wrestling technique, Duke lifted her body once more.
However, this time she leveraged feline flexibility to right herself midair and targeted the straps of Duke's cape.
"Hmm."
Duke released her arm while uttering a sound that held no particular meaning but somehow felt cool.
And he created distance from her right hand reaching for the cape straps.
The airborne Ari executed a cat-like landing roll, touching down on both feet.
"A sharp attack."
"Thank you."
She charged right back in.
This time, she ducked low enough to plant a hand on the ground, sweeping her leg at Duke's ankle.
'How will you handle this?'
Before becoming a slave, opponents seeing this technique for the first time always fell to it.
It looked like a tackle at a glance, but then there'd be no need to touch the ground.
This strike forced one-sided psychological pressure on the opponent.
If they braced their lower body against a tackle, she'd kick upward from the grounded hand to target the jaw.
If they lifted one leg to dodge, she'd pivot her wrist power alone from clockwise to counterclockwise trajectory, tackling the remaining planted leg.
If they ducked to block with their hands, she'd retract the leg, rise, and knee to the jaw.
An acrobatic motion ignoring inertia, unique to catkin beastfolk.
It strained the wrist, so not for frequent use, but unparalleled for exploiting openings.
Still, she doubted Duke would fall for it easily.
And true to her expectations(?), Duke countered in a way she had never seen before.
He placed his foot precisely atop her rapidly sweeping leg, halting it.
As if trapping a rolling ball.
"Wow."
Even she lost herself in admiration.
It was theoretically possible, but no one had ever pulled it off until now.
Duke could have ground down her ankle by shifting his weight, but he released her instead.
"[Pride of the Mountain Lord] lineage."
"You know it."
"I've encountered it. A tricky lineage."
"How do I stack up."
"Top five among those from that lineage I've met."
Ari swelled with pride at his words.
Precisely her fifth encounter for him, though Duke saw no need to mention it.
Thereafter, she continued challenging toward Duke's cape.
Meanwhile, referee Rex admired their spar while keeping eyes glued to their stamina bars.
'It's about to wrap up.'
Beneath her green health bar, the yellow gauge was scraping bottom.
A sign her stamina was nearly depleted.
'Spirit possession drains stamina hard.'
The effect of boosting all combat stats by 5 each was broken-tier, but the stamina consumption was brutal.
Far from the expected 30 minutes, it was hitting empty in just 5.
Rex nodded, satisfied with gathering solid intel pre-real-combat.
'That aside, this is a bit shocking.'
Rex checked Duke's stamina gauge.
It hadn't budged even 1%.
He'd thought her fixed-damage skills, ignoring defense, would at least chip Duke somewhat.
But figured Duke's absurdly high HP pool and natural regen would shrug it off.
In reality, Duke wasn't even taking hits—dominating with overwhelming technique, no blows landed.
'0 multiplied by 100 is still 0...'
No matter her fixed-damage prowess, zero hits meant zero damage.
Having pinpointed the not-weakness weakness of her skills, Rex jotted it into her character sheet.
• Extreme stamina drain during Spirit Possession: Requires stamina training.
• Skills lose meaning if technique stat gap too wide: Requires technique stat training.
Just one Ari for now, but from his position of potentially commanding multiples later, memos were essential.
His wealth of gaming experience taught that skipping such notes led to blunders down the line.
Finishing Ari's memo, Rex added one for Duke.
<Victory>
No matter how he thought about it, it was just a victory button.
As Rex's memos wrapped up, new text appeared above Ari's health bar.
'As expected. That's how it goes.'
Ari collapsed, gasping for breath.
"We'll stop here."
"Hah... huff..."
In stark contrast to her, drenched in sweat like a waterfall and on the verge of collapse, Duke was utterly serene.
His stamina in Rex's view hadn't even dropped 1%.
Thus, the spar concluded with Ari's loss by exhaustion forfeit.
Once the spar ended, Duke walked away without sparing a glance at the exhausted Ari.
'Can't hand out flags even as a convenience.'
Providing water and towels was purely Rex's role.
With a voice building an emotional wall, Duke offered his overall assessment of her techniques.
"The power in your fists was formidable, the speed swift, and the techniques highly refined. Yet you failed to let go of your attachment to the past until the very end."
With her brain barely functioning from oxygen deprivation, Ari managed a reply.
"I'm... sorry... hah..."
"Hm."
Duke turned his back to her fully and headed for the training ground exit.
His thorough erection of walls around her was more than enough to invite misunderstandings from onlookers.
'He must be dissatisfied.'
Especially for her, who yearned for Duke's acknowledgment as his disciple—she bowed her head in disappointment.
At that moment, Duke, on the verge of leaving the grounds, halted his steps.
"I've seen your potential clearly. I look forward to your growth ahead."
Still with his back turned, he displayed the severed cape straps.
"I'll repair my cape. In the meantime, Rex, you protect her."
Ari bowed deeply toward the departing Duke.
"Thank you!"
She repeatedly bowed toward Duke's retreating back as he left the training ground.
And Duke, at that very moment.
'I can sleep soundly tonight.'
Met a newbie, delivered the lines he'd wanted to say.
For Duke, it was an utterly perfect day.