Since When Did You Think My Power Was Limited to Cigar Smoke?
Since when did you think my power only handled cigar smoke? Abel met the serious gazes of the two staring at him with his own steady eyes, calmly pulling a cigar from his pocket.
As if putting on a show, he held up the cigar and a cigar cutter for the tip, then opened his mouth.
"We're not the type to settle this with words, right?"
Snick.
Confirming the tip was cleanly cut, Abel pulled out a lighter and lit the cigar.
Kaizen and Bella watched the scene in silence.
"...Yeah, pretty much."
Kaizen eyed Abel, who was lighting up right as the fight was about to start, and heightened his vigilance.
"Haa..."
Bella let out a sigh, double-checking her mana-engraved gear.
Seeing their reactions, Abel glanced at the knights quietly slipping out of the arena.
The spectator seats were already filling up with the mansion's servants.
"Looks like everyone's cleared out now. Shall we start?"
Abel scanned the surroundings slowly as he spoke, then pulled a coin from his pocket.
"We begin when this hits the ground. Sound good?"
"Doesn't matter to me."
"That's reasonable."
"Alright then..."
Ting!
With their firm agreement, Abel flicked the coin up with his thumb.
Whether from all-nighter fatigue activating his body with excess mana reinforcement, the coin shot up surprisingly high.
"Oh, and one more thing."
"Huh? Right before we start?"
Kaizen spoke as Abel watched the soaring coin.
"Yeah, exactly—right before we start."
Kaizen grinned aggressively back at him.
He already saw Abel as an enemy.
There wasn't a shred of carelessness in his eyes.
"I want to apologize for thinking you were just a slacker."
"Oh, same here."
"..."
Abel instinctively grasped the true meaning behind their words.
We're sorry for underestimating you as a slacker.
So from now on, we won't hold back even a little.
Reading between the lines, Abel smirked and exhaled a puff of cigar smoke.
The coin drew closer to the ground.
Ting!
Finally, it hit the dirt.
"Hup!"
Kaizen struck first.
A technique possible with his single-action revolver.
0.01 seconds to draw from the holster.
About 0.02 seconds to empty the full magazine.
Bang!
Even after firing all six rounds from the loaded revolver, the speed was so blistering it sounded like a single shot to the listener.
It was gunplay bordering on the divine.
Yet Abel and Bella countered it almost perfectly.
Abel released smoke from his body to block the bullets,
while Bella deflected them with her always-active shield.
"Haha!!"
Kaizen laughed lightly at the sight, injecting mana into his spent revolver.
Kaizen's ability.
[Magic Bullets].
The power to encode phenomena he understood into mana and transform them into bullets.
Of course, such a strong ability came with heavy constraints.
There were limits to the phenomena he could comprehend, and he couldn't use more than about three per fight.
Though the bullets created that way could be fired infinitely, as long as his mana held out.
Bang!
A [Magic Bullet] infused with Kaizen's mana, unlike the ordinary rounds before.
Bella noticed the anomaly first.
This is?!
Her personal shield, maintained 24/7—even unconsciously.
It's disrupting the mana?!
It wasn't nullifying magic.
Something far simpler and more fundamental: a [Magic Bullet] with the power to forcibly scatter the gathered mana needed to activate spells.
Her shield shattered. No—not shattered, but sliced through like flowing water by Kaizen's bullet.
The bullet's trajectory aimed straight for Bella's head.
But the moment her shield spell broke, her pre-set evasion magic activated in anticipation of such a crisis.
Whoosh!
Forcing her head aside, Kaizen's shot merely grazed her cheek.
"Hah... hah..."
Bella's pupils trembled, still unable to accept how close she'd come to death, before she whipped around to Abel.
She figured he was in the same boat.
"Ha!"
But Abel had simply brute-forced the attack away with raw power.
Disrupt mana? Then just pour in even more mana, problem solved.
The epitome of brute force. Yet it perfectly neutralized Kaizen's strike, as if that was the right answer all along.
Smirk.
Seeing that, Kaizen and Abel exchanged grins and charged at each other without a word.
Abel defended Kaizen's attacks with smoke and counterattacked.
Kaizen, proving his sword wasn't for show, parried with sword aura infused into the blade drawn from its sheath.
As expected...
Kaizen shuddered at Abel's overwhelming reserves while blocking.
Strong.
Strong enough to crush him effortlessly.
The no-sleep thing must be true.
His attack tells were too obvious.
Any ability, spell, or even knightly aura had precursors.
The telltale buildup of mana.
Abel's fatigue from sleeplessness made those tells glaringly readable to Kaizen.
Left!
Boom!!!
Even knowing where the attack came from didn't mean Kaizen could dodge—it depended on his skill.
Above, left, left again, then right!
Abel's smoke closing in from all sides.
Fists, swords, spears, hammers—attacks in tens of thousands of weapon forms.
Kaizen dodged while staring at Abel, who hadn't budged a step.
Bang!
Kaizen fired another [Magic Bullet]. Abel casually canceled it with his smoke.
"Ha, damn it!"
...
"..."
Bella watched their clash in a daze.
Both Abel's power and Kaizen's evasion defied her understanding.
I got it all wrong...
She could understand Abel.
She'd never seen or gauged his power before.
But Kaizen was different.
How...
She'd once calculated his impact from blocking his attack, adjusting for error margins to estimate his output.
It's different.
Different. That was all she could say.
Kaizen's current ability, strength, skill—everything far exceeded her predictions.
Was I arrogant?
Clench.
The thought hit her, and Bella gritted her teeth, balling her fists.
In the original history, she'd have died pathetically to Kaizen's ambush.
But Abel's intervention twisted that fate.
A seed that would have withered unnamed in history finally began to sprout.
No!
Hum.
Don't screw with me!
[Mana Engraving].
Casting magic required complex spell formulas.
Magic circles assisted that, but [Mana Engraving] went a step further.
Just infuse mana, and the pre-designed spell activates.
No complex formulas or circles needed. Anyone with mana could use magic.
She was a genius at simplifying complex equations and laws into forms anyone could wield.
I didn't come here to swallow this humiliation!!
Her six pieces of [Mana Engraved] gear glowed in response.
A pair of earrings with water magic,
three rings on her hands with various elemental spells,
and finally, her necklace with temporary [Gravity Magic] for perfect accuracy on all attacks.
All activated simultaneously.
Rumble!
"!!!"
"!!!"
Their bodies suddenly grew heavier. Kaizen and Abel turned to Bella at once.
"Well then, shall we get serious?"
Bella flashed a light smile at the two men finally looking her way.
.
.
.
Dozens, hundreds of clashes. With Bella joining, the arena devolved into pure chaos.
Hmm... as expected.
Abel eyed the two pressing him from both sides, squinting his sleep-deprived, aching left eye.
They're strong...
Honestly, hearing they'd lost to the Duke had made him underestimate them a bit.
But experiencing their prowess firsthand, they were no joke.
Strong enough to earn [Shadow Squad]'s recognition.
By Abel's judgment, Kaizen was at least Expert Upper—vice-captain of a knight order.
Bella's magic surpassed even Heros, whom he'd faced.
Bang!
Blocking Kaizen's shot again, Abel sighed under the weight of Bella's [Gravity Magic].
Already far from peak condition without sleep.
Moving mana or his body came with split-second delays.
One-on-one, he'd wipe either out.
But they knew that too, ignoring each other to focus solely on him.
Zing.
Ugh.
Fighting with mana sans sleep was problematic too.
Even standing still, attacking and defending with smoke was as taxing as intense exercise.
His head throbbed again, wrinkling his brow.
Kaizen didn't miss the opening.
Bang!
Kaizen blocked Abel's counter with his signature rapid fire from the front line,
"Fire, wind, strike my foe!"
while Bella fell back a step, pressuring with firepower.
The perfect formation.
As Abel reached for a new cigar to replenish his spent smoke,
"Now!"
Bella signaled, and Kaizen instantly retreated.
[Black Magic — Decay]
Crumble.
The cigar disintegrated into dust.
"What...?"
Abel stared blankly as the cigar blew away in the wind.
"Your power's trigger must be that cigar smoke, right?"
Bella smirked, watching him.
An impressive ability.
If Abel were fully rested, they wouldn't stand a chance.
"So, naturally, we make sure you can't light one."
From Bella's vast spell repertoire, black magic was foundational experience.
Originally for food preservation, its opposite—decay—was trivial.
And cigars were processed fermented tobacco.
Even with modest black magic attainment, decaying a cigar was easy for her.
"It's over."
"We won't kill you, at least."
Kaizen and Bella charged Abel once more.
.
.
.
Kaizen, aggressively burning through Abel's smoke with constant motion, noticed first.
What the?
The temperature dropping bit by bit, now chilly as early winter.
He hadn't noticed at first.
No time to care amid the frenzy.
Whoosh.
But spotting the white breath from his exhale, Kaizen panicked.
Why?
Bella felt the same doubt.
What?
***
"Hahaha."
The Duke, having ordered Sebastian to fetch a mana-light screen showing the knight arena,
smiled lightly watching his two illegitimate grandchildren fight.
He knew they weren't weak, even if his ambush had nearly killed them.
Amused by the unexpectedly captivating developments, he eyed the stalled Kaizen and Bella.
"I fell for that trick too. Kehhehehe."
When he'd first fought Abel, his initial move was blocking the cigar.
Too obvious a starting point not to.
Normal ability users would patch such weaknesses.
"Who'd have thought it was a massive trap."
But realizing it was a trap came after taking internal damage from Abel's attack.
***
Whoosh.
Their attacks halted.
I gazed at the white breath from my mouth and smiled quietly.
The fight ground to a sudden lull.
In front of the two staring blankly at my smoky exhale, I casually swept back my hair.
"Hmm. Yeah, cutting off the cigars makes sense. But hey."
Since when did you think my power only handled cigar smoke?