Orichalcum (7): A Duel for the Ship

The nobles of old used to settle their disputes with duels, or so the tabloids claimed. There was no way to verify whether that gossip was fact or fiction—there is no WiFi in this other world—but according to the stories, people sometimes got too badly injured in those duels and died.

「It seems Germania has a similar culture.」 I remarked as I followed her out to the training ground.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Vikings or not, deciding matters with duels felt incredibly barbaric.

「Kyahaha!! It’s convenient and nice, isn’t it? On a ship, the only things you can trust are guts and skill. Whether or not you can trust a person comes after that.」

Ursula stood with a sword in one hand, preparing for the duel. It was the same curved blade she had been carrying when she came to see us. A straightforward, might-makes-right type. In this other world where even rural village merchants scheme and plot, she was a very rare specimen. It was fascinating how perfectly her appearance matched her personality.

It’s easier than setting weird conditions.

Since it had come to this, I decided to think positively. At least she hadn’t demanded I fetch some precious artifact. The only real concern was exactly how strong Ursula was.

「Do you settle every request with a duel like this?」

Asking directly how strong she was probably wouldn’t get an answer, so I probed indirectly. Her skill level should be roughly apparent from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠how many duels she’d fought and how many she’d won.

If her record was something like ninety-nine fights, zero wins, ninety-nine losses, that would make things easy for me. A witch who accepted every challenge, lost every time, and then granted the requests anyway. Somehow that mental image made her seem almost cute.

From what I can see, she doesn’t look that strong, so I can’t really tell.

Her weight-shifting was beyond amateur level, but until ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I saw her mana it was hard to gauge her true ability. Come to think of it, my own real combat experience was rather limited.

「Sometimes. Foreigners or people from the inland regions with urgent business often come asking to borrow my ship.」

As she spoke, Ursula took a stylish sword stance.

「──Though not many men have defeated me and boarded my ship.」

─Clack. There was a veteran’s charisma in the way Ursula raised her blade. Her posture was excellent; it looked like she had received formal sword training. She had mentioned being ex-military—perhaps she had retired from the Germania navy? Her background made me curious about her age.

Wait, fuck, why is that a real sword?

She had brought me to the training ground, so I assumed we would spar with wooden weapons like I had with Franc. Instead, Ursula drew a live blade and assumed a combat stance.

Startled, I asked, 「Don’t you use wooden swords? Mine may be a real spear, but—」

「This is a duel to test your guts. Wooden swords? You want to play around rubbing sticks with me?」

Wow. I’d sensed it earlier, but this lady definitely has a taste for sexual innuendo. I’d heard sailors develop filthy mouths, but apparently that applies to women too.

I spent a profound 0.3 seconds pondering how to respond before answering.

「We can’t have you getting hurt, Ursula. I’m not confident I can hold back my strength.」

「You’ve got spirit. I like it.」

─Grin. Ursula smiled in a way that perfectly suited her personality. It had been a while since my provocation landed a clean stun. Maybe because I couldn’t use pad lip or serious curses. So the K-agro I learned in Summoner’s Rift couldn’t be used in respectable places.

The scarred maid acting as referee raised a flag from the corner of the training ground. Two meters away stood our wives and party members.

Why does everyone look like their boyfriend or friend just got dragged into the ring against a pro boxer?

Only Franc didn’t seem overly worried. When our eyes met she clenched her fist and mouthed Fighting! Fucking bear energy surged inside me.

「I’m ready.」

「Me too.」

「……Then both sides, take your positions.」

The scarred maid gave us three seconds before waving the flag like an F4 racing girl.

「──Match start!」

─Tap tap! Just as she had claimed, Ursula attacked without hesitation. She stepped forward and swung her sword, causing mana to surge. There was no visible change, but it was clearly magic.

…Shweeeeek!

When I focused my ears I caught the faint sound of cutting wind.

「──Wind’s Scar!!」

And it was the knockoff version with all the visual effects removed!

「Foul play! Invisible cheat!!」

「I can’t help it if the wind is invisible.」

Ursula roughly understood my meaning and answered. Naturally, the invisible Wind’s Scar she had launched did not disappear. Dirty. As expected from a witch.

─Shwaaaak!

My body, sensing the crisis, instinctively coated itself with the mana of Beast Regression. It was a universal physiological reaction, like a full high-schooler dozing on his desk after lunch. But I canceled the activation.

There was something I had wanted to test ever since I heard the word “duel.”

How long until the Wind’s Scar reached me? Five seconds? Three?

Three-second cut is totally doable.

Instead of Beast Regression, I drew mana from my inner world. Clenching my fist as if crushing the sun resting in my palm, the ancient god’s mana circulated through every corner of my body. It had reinforced my mana pathways like rebar in concrete.

─Pazzzzt!!!

There was no outward change, yet I felt a clear spec upgrade. The human body is weak among creatures. Compared to monsters it couldn’t even stand against an ogre and would lose to an orc. But reinforced with the ancient god’s mana, my base specs rose dramatically.

If Beast Regression mode was putting a car engine on a bicycle, then in Gerthur mode both my body and engine were a motorcycle—an all-weather tactical motorcycle with tracks. A high-performance machine built for Mad Max in a post-nuclear wasteland.

Odin is watching me! He’s going to take me to Valhalla!

─Vroom vroom vroom!!

I spun my spear like a windmill. A rotating spear like a helicopter propeller. It was the second form of Gerthur’s counter skill.

Anyone who has practiced martial arts would probably smack their own balls and forehead alternately while asking what kind of idiot tries to block attacks by spinning a spear. Such a martial art probably didn’t exist anywhere on Earth.

─Ching ching ching tang tang tang!!

Yet the spear neatly deflected the wind blades. The weapon that rejected foreign mana roared as it shattered the blades. No attacks slipped through the gaps in the rotation. If it were such a pathetic technique, Odin would never have named it.

The round-trip slap of physics wasn’t an exclusive patent of mages. With sufficient mana and specs, warriors could also perform common-sense-defying movements.

Gerthur was a perfect example.

「Oh! That’s some fine spearmanship!」

Ursula charged forward with an admiring shout. I agreed. Humans cannot defeat windmills. That was the lesson Don Quixote taught me!

Magic? Muscles over that shit!

「A sufficiently developed bicep cannot be distinguished from magic!!」

I stopped spinning the windmill and dashed toward Ursula. The counter skill’s second form had a follow-up technique, but using it now would be pointless. Throwing the spear and retrieving it would only create a huge opening.

─Pipipipipipipiping!

Using the technique from the Heavenly Three Swords Style’s Demon Dragon Flash, I thrust repeatedly, but there was no sign of hitting her even once. Ursula’s body was light as if she came from a lunar base. A wind magic buff? It felt similar to the spell Tirsi had once cast on me. Actually, it might be exactly that spell.

She’s like a leaf floating on water.

I had mastered leaf-cutting through relentless training. I swung the spear like a baseball bat—an attack that dominated the space available for dodging. This was the true value of this world’s spearmanship with its superior reach.

「This is also quite──! Kk!!」

Ursula, who had parried the blow, shook her hand; my strength seemed greater than she expected. I was surprised as well. She was probably a hybrid like me, capable of both physical and magical damage. On the sea, magic would be more useful than raw strength.

In other words, unlike me, Ursula was a mage who had learned swordsmanship and was more specialized in magical damage. The fact that she could deflect my attack proved just how impressive she was.

This was my chance. I poured power into my biceps to seize the momentum.

─Bwoong!!

Holding the spear like a sword, I swung it left and right. Ursula had the advantage in speed, so I claimed the space with swings that left her no room to dodge. She gripped her one-handed sword with both hands and focused entirely on defense.

「Hahahahat! I only meant to sample the flavor, but it’s spicier than I expected!!」

「In our hometown, even cold dishes are spicy!」

「What a horrible story! Good thing I never visited the East!!」

Ursula, distracted by Kitai’s signature K-spiciness, jumped backward the moment I tried to raise the intensity of my attacks. Fuck, I missed! The sudden wind made me think it was a counterattack; I panicked and switched to defense. That was a mistake.

─Tap! Tap tap!

Ursula used silent-cast wind magic while performing continuous moon-walk back jumps. I realized it was an evasion maneuver, not a counter, and tried to pursue with Munggae-Munggae Shunpo, but she cast another spell.

A blue shield unfolded. It looked different from ordinary shields. A shield with a dense mesh! Magic that proudly declared its user was a sea-dweller. Yet it wasn’t something to dismiss—the mana radiating from it was no joke. With that surface area condensed into a shield, it was clearly specialized for physical defense. Flames or lightning might penetrate, but weapons would be stopped by the mesh.

Is she trying to settle this with a magic battle?

The shield followed me no matter how I moved. Ursula cast spells while defending—the classic other-world mage tactic of hiding and sniping. Fuck, these neighborhood mages always do this when they start losing in close quarters!

If I challenge her with magic, the situation will completely reverse from earlier.

My skill was too shallow to compete directly with her specialty. Hadn’t I nearly been beaten when we clashed physically just moments ago? The 180-degree opposite scenario had more than a ninety percent chance of occurring.

But honestly, this was also a good situation for me. In a battle where both sides used their ultimate techniques, I held the advantage—I possessed far more high-firepower secret arts relative to my combat strength.

Therefore I gladly accepted Ursula’s proposal for a magic battle (physical).

─Shwaaaaaak!!

I activated Beast Regression. A double buff of ancient god mana and Beast Regression! Mana ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠consumption doubled, with half of it devoured by Beast Regression. Fuck, I had expected it, but the consumption was still brutal. In this state, every attack would require mana equivalent to maximum-output magic.

But if you look at it differently, that means I can fire high-firepower spells continuously without cooldown, right?

Now was the perfect time to test what kind of effect the interaction between my buffs would produce.

─Vroom vroom vroom!!

Spinning the spear like a windmill, I twisted my body to the right like an African tribal dancer. The wind whipped my bangs as if I had stuck my head into a giant fan.

─Kachachachang!!!

The attack that transformed rotation into destructive power pulverized the mesh shield. The shield shattered with a sound like scraping across uneven ground. Ursula bravely continued her incantation to the end. After firing a powerful attack she must have thought the timing would match, but that was a mistake.

The first strike had reduced the kinetic energy to zero while destroying the shield. When performing this technique I suffered no after-delay from action-reaction. In other words, there was no time gap between the first and second strikes.

─Ping!!

Like striking a rubber hammer against a wall, the mithril spear bounced back 180 degrees. The time it took for the blade to reach beneath Ursula’s chin was less than a second. Of course I stopped before it touched her skin, but if she had opened her mouth to continue casting she would have impaled her own throat on the spear.

About ten seconds of silence passed. When I gave her just enough distance to move her chin, Ursula let out a sigh and said,

「……I lost.」

─Fuuuuck! I won!

My mood felt as refreshed as if I had finished a satisfying workout. But if Ursula got upset and refused to lend the ship it would be disastrous, so I kept my expression under iron control and politely bowed.

「Thank you for the spar. It was a wonderful experience.」

「No need for humility. When that spear flew at my neck I genuinely thought you might fail to control your strength and kill me.」

「I’m glad I was able to stop before stabbing you.」

「Hey, you! If you aren’t confident, don’t thrust it at someone’s neck!!」

「It was a joke. I’ll keep it in mind next time.」

I had thrust it precisely because I was confident I could stop. Anyway, after that exchange I glanced toward the party members. Cool-acting Dana with her messy purple curls and the now-hornless Bicorn looked relieved, but Franc clapping like a seal and Larilura dancing like a cheerleader were honestly a little funny.

「If it’s you and the person you chose, they have the right to board my ship.」

Ursula brushed off her tailcoat, sheathed her sword, and asked,

「When do you plan to set sail?」

「Dawn two days from now.」

Dawn was a viable time for sailing. The two-day grace period was so we could buy swimsuits and other necessities. Obviously the swimsuit was the most important item.

I want to lie on Dana’s breasts and cover my face with Franc’s breasts.

It would smell sweetly like cookies topped with fresh cream. Dana’s breasts were the cookies, Franc’s were the cream.

While I was lost in that pleasant daydream, Ursula calculated something and nodded.

「Two days later. Good. Come to the dock below this cape. My ship is anchored there.」

「Thank you for accepting so readily. We’re planning for a ten-day voyage.」

She really had decided everything with a duel. I felt a strange mixture of amazement and understanding, but unlike my odd tastes, Ursula gave sincere advice.

「If the voyage is less than thirty days, you should bring half again as much food as extra supplies. Prepare enough for fifteen days. We’ll do the same.」

「Yes. We’ll do that.」

I listened to several more points of caution and jotted them down in my notebook. Now we could resume sightseeing, buy the swimsuits, and set off for vacation at dawn the day after tomorrow.

The sea. The paradise island floating upon that terrifying pool of saltwater was calling us.