Freak Show of the Circus (16)
I burst with cold fury and moved. My body? No. My head. Think, you idiot. Are you really going to charge in mindlessly, swinging at everything that moves? Use that genius brain of yours to make up for your shitty combat technique!
'Analyze the speed and power of those knives!'
I pulled back my flame-wrapped fist and dashed forward. Anasis didn't descend from the elevated ledge. Instead, she fired her knives from above. My eyes measured their velocity instantly. 'Slower than the ones she threw when I provoked her!'
─Thud!
I heard Larilura falling back. The three knives Franc had hurled before leaving forced Anasis to dodge in panic.
─Whoosh!!
The blades, thrown with a dwarf's raw strength, sliced through the hem of Anasis's clothing. She didn't counterattack Franc. Her focus stayed locked on me instead of the retreating half-dwarf.
"You arrogant bastard!!"
─Swish, swish, swish!!
Knives screamed toward me. Still too slow. How many? Five at most. Why wasn't she throwing every last one at once? Conserving ammunition? No way. She could control knives even after they hit the ground, so there was no reason to hold back.
I twisted my lips into a sneer. '──I get it now!'
The principle behind her knife attacks suddenly clicked.
'It's an output issue with her Puppetry!'
Puppetry wasn't originally a powerful spell. It needed a structure that amplified its effect on the puppets. Anasis's knives worked the same way! Those weapons had to be specialized magic items, processed like Tabula's mask.
'Just like before!'
When she first ambushed Roman, and again when I rescued Erika. Those had been the perfect moments to kill me, yet only eight knives had flown my way. Four were fakes. The remaining four came at a speed I couldn't dodge and buried themselves in my back.
Why?
If Anasis had thrown every last knife, I never would have saved Erika. I would've been turned into a bloody pincushion, a human beehive. But the bitch hadn't done it! It didn't seem like she was keeping me alive just to torment me. This was still broad daylight, even if we were in the slums. She should have killed me quickly and cleaned up the mess.
Which meant──
'The fewer knives she uses, the weaker they become!'
Her attacks had a critical flaw! Single throws were too slow. Multiple throws lacked killing power. That's why she'd set traps beforehand and coated her blades with paralytic poison. Too few knives and I'd dodge easily. Too many and the lethality dropped. Fighting someone like me, practically wearing full-body armor, must have been a huge burden for her too!
'──Then...!'
I swatted the incoming knives away with my bare hands and stopped fearing them. A human only has two hands. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't block or dodge them all. Especially not against a clown who lived for murder and deception.
The knives that missed curved back in a treacherous U-turn. I took those hits on purpose.
─Thud, thud, thud!
Fewer knives meant more power. The enhanced blades slammed into my back. I clenched my teeth against the searing pain.
"You son of a bitch!! If you break my shit, are you gonna pay for the repairs?!"
Fuck, it hurt like hell!! But I could endure it!! The detoxifying potion was still circulating through my body!! The knives couldn't pierce my mana coating deep enough to cause fatal damage!!
"Summon Cloud!!"
I kicked off the ground and activated the spell while jumping.
Whoosh─!!
Using the jump's momentum, I cleared the five-meter ledge in a single bound.
─Whoong!
Anasis desperately dodged my burning claw strike. Even while backpedaling, she fired the knives she'd left floating. Two of them. She was increasing their power to kill me while I was airborne!
"Hup!!"
─Clang!!
I snatched the knives hurtling toward my neck and stomach. No matter how much she'd modified them for combat, Puppetry was still a low-tier spell. It couldn't match the speed and grip strength granted by Beast Regression!
─Clunk!
The resistance from the knives trying to escape my grasp vanished. She wasn't attached to weapons I'd stolen. The fucking bitch was a battle veteran.
"Try dodging these too!!"
─Clack, clack!
Anasis leveled new knives at me. I didn't fall for it. That was the fake. The real threat was the knife quietly gathering mana behind me! That lying whore. She was trying to distract me for a backstab!
"Not a chance in hell! Knife Defense Counter!"
"What the──?! Kyaaaah!!"
I hurled the stolen knife. She clearly hadn't expected me to ignore both the obvious fake in front and the sneak attack from behind. Anasis couldn't dodge. The blade struck true.
─Thwack!!
The knife sank into her arm, slicing through flesh and bone. She'd managed to protect her torso with her arm. Her reflexes were impressive, at least.
─Thud!
My jump's hang time ended and I landed on the ledge. I shifted from a heroic landing into a crouching start. My lightning-fast dash caught Anasis off guard.
"You bastard─!!"
When I charged, Anasis stopped moving and poured every ounce of concentration into her Puppetry. Massive amounts of mana not bound to any knife flooded the air! Low defensive power was the shared weakness of all puppet masters! To keep me from closing in, the bitch had decided to bet everything on this one decisive clash!
─Bang bang bang bang bang bang!!
A barrage of knives that completely ignored mana consumption! Firing them with one-second intervals between each shot! I recognized the resolve behind the attack and intensified the flames around both hands!
"A rush attack rally, huh!! Bring it oooon!!"
Fwoooooosh─!!
I deflected the knives! Using flashy footwork to dodge the ones aimed at my limbs while batting away the heavier strikes targeting my shoulders, chest, and stomach!
"Hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryah──!!"
I roared. It was a ferocious sprint, like a Pomeranian finally let out for a walk after a week and chasing pigeons.
─Claaaaang!!
My mana-coated hands slapped the sides of the knives away!!
Norde! The faster that bitch's knives get, the less complex their movements become!!
The Professor Slayer inside me spoke. Anasis's attacks couldn't produce the chaotic curveballs like Magneto. That was Newton's law of inertia! Even in this other world, the law remained unchanged! Therefore──
I only needed to read their trajectories!
Then my major-league-level boing-boing speed could handle these attacks!!
'Focus, acrobatic skill, reflexes, speed, Stand power!!'
Gathering everything I had, I broke through the storm of knives──and brought Anasis's body within range of my fists!!
Shocked, Anasis lost balance in her upper body. With one prosthetic leg, her panicked attempt to flee only made her stumble worse! This was my chance! Time to finish it!
My eyes flashed.
"Summon Cloud!"
I abused my mana, compressing smoke around my elbow. I clenched my fist tight. Take this! This is the power of a long-legged bastard!!
"Poof poof───!!!"
─I was about to shout "Fire!" when─
─Click!
The sound of gears engaging. A chill ran down my spine at the noise coming from Anasis's prosthetic leg. The woman who looked like she was falling backward flashed a triumphant smile.
─Shing!
Her prosthetic leg disassembled, and a 30-centimeter blade shot out from inside.
'──A puppet prosthetic!!'
She'd modified her own artificial leg into her final trump card! Hiding an even bigger secret inside the secret she didn't want revealed! Even that surprised act had been performance?
I hadn't predicted this, so I was genuinely shocked! This woman had been cornered to the brink of defeat and still had one more trick up her sleeve!
Swish─!
The bladed kick flew at me!! Fast!! Unlike the small knives, the larger prosthetic could hold far more magic circles!! Adding Anasis's leg strength to the Puppetry output made it impossible to dodge the surprise attack!!
Fwoooooosh─!!
On top of that, the poof-poof propulsion was still violently pushing my arm forward! This was also fucking Newton's first law of inertia!
"Mister Newton!! How could you betray me like this!!"
I screamed, trembling with the sense of betrayal! I tensed my glutes and twisted my waist! If I couldn't dodge, I'd meet it head-on!!
"Vector─Universal Gravitaaaaaation!!!"
The flame punch, propelled with exactly the force the creator intended, smashed into the knee of the prosthetic leg Anasis had swung.
─CRACK!!!
I felt the sickening sensation of cartilage shattering against my fist. Anasis, witnessing my full power for the first time, twisted her face grotesquely as the leg attached to her prosthetic shattered.
"Gyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!"
Anasis collapsed, clutching her knee. The woman who had a blade in her leg really did end up with her knee destroyed and bent backward like a broken doll!
"Ah, fuck, that hurts!!"
Of course I wasn't completely fine either. I'd had the advantage in durability, so even after pulverizing her knee my hand bones were intact. But the detached prosthetic had flown up and sliced deep into my arm. Damn. Wasn't this cut almost two centimeters deep? A fucking scratch! This level of "serious injury" (sarcasm) was the first I'd had since getting cut by a tripwire during guard duty in the military!
Oh, and excluding the knives still stuck in my back, of course.
'What if there's poison on the damn thing?'
Getting scared, I picked up the detached prosthetic and examined it. It didn't feel like anything was applied. Well, it made sense. Who would coat their everyday prosthetic with poison? Still, just to be safe, I chugged the remaining detox potion. Fuck, it tasted awful.
Fortunately, I still had the luxury of complaining about the potion's terrible taste. Anasis, whose knee had been destroyed, was too busy sobbing and wailing in pain to attack me.
"It hurts! It huuurts!! It hurts so much!!"
The Anasis who had acted so relaxed until the very end completely dropped her arrogant expression. She clutched her thigh and whined pathetically.
"My leg!! My leg!! My leeeeg!! Just like back then, just like back theeeen─!!!"
Back then? Ah, she must be remembering the day she lost her leg. Seeing her forget we were in the middle of battle and suffer from trauma looked pitiful at a glance, but I felt zero sympathy.
─Step.
I deliberately made noise as I approached the bitch. Still holding the bladed prosthetic.
─Flinch!
Startled by my footsteps, Anasis trembled while drooling. Forgetting to stand, she crawled across the dirty slum back alley.
─Creep, creep.
Anasis crawled forward, blood pouring from her shattered knee. Trying to run away now? After tormenting and killing so many children and victims, she valued her own life?
"Trash whore."
As I muttered that, white flames rose inside me. It was a fury frozen solid like the extreme tundra. I gripped the prosthetic backward and stabbed it into her remaining healthy calf.
─Squish!!
The blade pierced bone and flesh, embedding into the stone floor.
"Gyyyyyaaaaaaaagggghhhk!!! Aaaaaaaaagh──!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh──!!!"
Anasis thrashed her limbs like a pinned insect, her leg skewered. Her soprano screams echoed off the alley walls.
"Where do you think you're going, clown? Isn't this your stage?"
Ignoring the screams, I deactivated Burning Hand. The black sword Anasis had dodged earlier was stuck in the wall as if it had been waiting for this very moment.
"Does it hurt? That's what happens when your legs get cut off."
I pulled the sword from the wall and held it.
"Are you scared? That's how it is for rookie clowns."
─Step. Step.
I approached, my shoes ringing against the ground. The clown, her face ruined by pain and terror, froze like an insect that had sensed its death.
"Why are you crying? Why are you running? Isn't this a familiar stage? The happy circus time you performed every single day has simply returned."
─Slice!!
My sword cut through Anasis's remaining leg. The legless woman screamed. The circus magician thrashed her body side to side, spraying blood. Hot droplets splattered across my body and face. But I had no mercy to give this bitch. The woman who mourned the loss of even one of her own legs had spent her life mutilating and violating the lives and bodies of others. This ending was exactly what a piece of human garbage like her deserved.
"──Stand up, clown. It's time for the freak show you love so much."
In this pathetic back-alley stage with no audience and no pay, I twirled my blood-soaked sword and spoke.
"The finale of the Roman Circus should always be entertaining."