Chapter 125
Chapter 125
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 125
Chapter Title: Duel's Turning Point
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8
It was worth throwing down the gauntlet right from the start.
The Federation side hurriedly entered discussions over Leon's victory, which they had never imagined possible.
They must have thought they could easily beat us nobodies who weren't even knights, so it was only natural they'd be shocked.
And it wasn't even a fierce fight.
It was a one-shot win, plain and simple.
The result was something no one could have predicted, and it completely shattered the Federation's morale.
On our side, morale was skyrocketing in the unexpected surge.
Of course, the duel was best of five, first to three wins.
We still had two victories left to claim.
"Can I... really win this...?"
Noel asked weakly, taking deep breaths.
As the second batter, he looked extremely tense.
Well, after what Leon had just pulled off, it would be weirder if he wasn't nervous.
"Don't worry! My friend! With your skills, you can totally do it!"
"I agree."
Ethan slapped Noel hard on the back.
Leon nodded as well, and it seemed genuine, not just politeness.
Noel's self-esteem still wasn't all that high.
But it was true that being around Leon and Ethan had helped him recover it faster than in the original story.
Above all, he'd even developed new techniques that didn't exist in the original, so the current Noel was stronger than the one I knew.
For such a Noel, what he needed was simple, small, irreplaceable encouragement.
I steadied my breathing and patted his shoulder.
"Believe in yourself. Ignore everything else. Got your pistol?"
"...Yeah."
Noel chewed over my words, nodded, and stepped into the dueling grounds.
A Federation knight was already waiting inside.
"You're my opponent? You're so small and cute."
Noel's foe was an avian beastman flapping his large wings.
With a scar crossing the bridge of his nose, he gave off an endlessly carefree impression—and he really was quite lighthearted.
"Nedbed! Don't get cocky!"
"Yes, got it, Captain Wolvern."
Nedbed gave a half-hearted reply to Jeno Wolvern's warning and pulled his hand out of his pocket.
"Alright, let's see. I'm Nedbed, the knight you'll be fighting. I'll be flying around a bit—got no complaints?"
"Nope."
Click. Noel drew his gun, his golden eyes filled with resolve, and Nedbed whistled.
"Nice! Let's both do whatever and not complain about it."
Nedbed also drew the javelin strapped to his back.
At the same time, Jeno declared the start of the duel.
Whoosh!
A fierce wind blasted the sand away in sync with his wingbeats.
Noel pulled the trigger repeatedly at Nedbed, who shot into the air in one leap.
Bang! Nedbed circled in a loop as the sharp gunshot cracked through the air.
"Haha! Not hitting me! I thought pistols would be a bad matchup for me, but nope!"
As expected of this flippant guy.
Ignoring Nedbed's chatter, Noel kept firing.
The bullet barrage slicing through the air was quite precise, but Nedbed dodged without issue.
Of course, just dodging wouldn't create an opening for attack.
Soon enough, Nedbed used his wings as a shield to block the bullets.
"I've taken plenty of hits, so now it's my turn to shoot! Don't die in one go!"
With a spirited shout, Nedbed hurled his javelin.
At the same time, Noel rolled to the side.
The javelin distorted the air as it flew, embedding itself exactly where Noel had stood.
Boom!!
It wasn't even worthy of being called a javelin.
A direct hit would surely rip off a limb.
It was a terrifying strike, but Noel ignored it and kept pulling the trigger.
"Told you it won't work?"
Now not even bothering to dodge, Nedbed flapped his wings.
Bullets that couldn't pierce the thick feathers rained down harmlessly.
And then Nedbed fell too.
"Huh...?"
He frantically tried to flap his wings.
But the ice frozen to his feathers had firmly bound them.
A magic bullet.
Noel had deliberately lured Nedbed into tanking the regular bullets with his body, then used a magic bullet to freeze his wings, sealing off the avian beastman's greatest advantages: aerial combat and mobility.
Something only Noel could pull off.
Click. Noel reloaded and aimed his gun barrel at Nedbed's forehead as he crashed down.
Even a knight couldn't survive a point-blank headshot.
Especially since the latest-model pistol was faster and more accurate than Nedbed swinging his javelin.
"I lose~."
In the end, Nedbed dropped his javelin and raised both hands high.
"This is embarrassing. You've crushed my pride completely."
Our side erupted in cheers at the clear signal of surrender.
That left us one win away.
Victory was rolling right into our hands easily.
I was inwardly cheering when I heard Jeno Wolvern issuing orders to his Federation troops with a grim expression.
"This is troubling. Bring him out."
9
"...I didn't expect things to turn out like this."
Ethan held his shield and longsword, but his opponent was bare-handed.
Who would have thought a boxer would step up instead of a knight?
Ethan used his fists too, but he couldn't compare to a professional martial artist trained in boxing.
His Shield of Restraint wasn't optimized for thoroughly blocking enemy attacks head-on, so it had a bad matchup against an opponent who relentlessly shifted positions and exploited gaps like an elite boxer.
Especially since this opponent was the worst possible.
A small frame comparable to Noel's, cool clothes unfit for the desert, hair tied back in one ponytail, and unique tattoos etched into his skin.
His name was Finri Aite.
Two years younger than us, yet he was a famed boxer who would soon earn the moniker "Storm Fist" across the land.
He could attack fluidly from any stance, making him exceptionally tricky to fight.
In fact, his specialty was reading opponents' attacks and countering them.
His strikes, using every muscle efficiently, packed power unimaginable from his small build.
Thanks to that, he'd given us a tough time as a mid-boss during the Federation's final battle in Broken World.
I had no idea Finri Aite would be in Ulverhelm at this point....
This trash game barely covered events unrelated to Leon in detail, so it was natural not to know where the villains were even if things followed canon.
Smack!
Finri Aite slipped past the widely swung shield like flowing water and kicked Ethan in the shin.
Kicking the sturdy shin of someone built like a tree trunk should normally hurt the kicker more.
But with exquisite timing that upset his balance, Ethan toppled over.
"Urk...!?"
You can't fall against a boxer.
Sensing that instinctively, Ethan tried to get up immediately, but Finri Aite mounted him faster.
What followed wasn't a duel—it was one-sided violence.
Finri Aite pummeled the unresisting Ethan.
The momentum had already shifted.
It might sound cold, but Ethan had no path to victory.
I threw in the towel without watching any longer, ending the third duel.
Roooar!!
The Federation's morale pierced the heavens with their hard-won first victory.
I dashed into the dueling grounds regardless.
"Ethan, you okay?"
"...Sorry."
Despite being the one beaten up, Ethan hung his head in shame.
Bruises everywhere, but nothing seemed broken.
Leon, who had hurried over, supported him.
Finri Aite snorted from behind.
"All size, no substance."
"What did you just say?"
I hadn't planned to react.
But his words belittling Ethan made blood rush to my head unbidden.
I could vividly feel it surging madly through my veins.
"You said he's nothing special."
Finri replied with a sneer.
Ethan had fought plenty well.
It was just a bad matchup.
No—more fundamentally, bad timing.
"Enjoy talking big now. In two years, you won't be saying that."
Finri Aite was a strong opponent.
But in the end, just a mid-boss.
The Finri Aite two years from now falls to Leon's party.
Right now, that moment just hadn't arrived yet.
Seeing him mouth off carelessly after luckily jumping on stage early made my blood boil.
We'll settle this later.
Next time our paths cross, I'll make sure he gets crushed by Ethan's hand.
For now, Finri Aite wasn't the priority.
I swallowed my anger and patted the dejected Ethan's shoulder.
"No need to apologize. You did great, so sit and rest. Treat that face first."
"The duel..."
"Don't worry. I'll handle it."
Only then did Ethan let Leon help him off the dueling grounds.
I really hadn't expected to come this far... but no choice.
Handing it to Paul carried too much risk.
Looks like I have to do it myself.
"Oh? The one who challenged us to duel steps up. Then it would only be proper for me to fight."
As if such etiquette mattered.
Oblivious to my thoughts, Jeno Wolvern ascended to the dueling grounds.
Roooar!!
The Federation unleashed thunderous cheers, showing how much trust they had in him.
Noel and Ethan cheered for me too, faintly by comparison.
That was enough. I calmly drew my magic sword.
"Honestly, I'm impressed with you all. I never imagined handing over two wins so easily."
"My friends are just that good. I was honestly aiming for a clean 3-0 sweep."
"So that's why you were so confident in challenging us."
Of course. I couldn't have pulled this off without them.
I shrugged lightly.
"But that confidence ends here. We won't yield even a single win from now on."
With that bold declaration, Jeno Wolvern drew his sword.
We faced each other and raised our blades.
No one gave the start signal.
We just kicked off the ground simultaneously.
Jeno Wolvern seized the initiative.
His swordplay wasn't flashy but honest and swift, strikes pouring in one after another.
I could track them with my eyes, but blocking every one was tough.
Each time a blade grazed my skin that I couldn't fully block, the Ring of the Absolute generated a barrier.
"Auto-defense, eh? Quite the unique gear you have."
"Using equipment isn't cheating, right?"
"Using everything at your disposal is strategy too. Same for me."
As if hinting at something.
Jeno Wolvern did have one unusual piece of gear.
Judging he couldn't pierce the Ring of the Absolute like this, he fell back.
I wanted to pursue, but the ground was sinking sand that swallowed my feet.
Unfamiliar terrain made even walking properly hard.
In that gap, Jeno sheathed his sword in its scabbard.
Sheathing mid-fight to use iaijutsu.
It looked utterly impractical, but that scabbard was Jeno Wolvern's hidden trump card.
Crackle! Sparks flew from the scabbard's gap.
The scabbard itself was a magic tool of sorts.
Like a railgun, it accelerated the blade with electricity, elevating iaijutsu to its limits.
Anyone unfamiliar would get hit at least once.
But that was only if you didn't know.
If you did, countering wasn't hard.
I lifted my foot from the sand.
Using spatial magic, I severed the space between the beach and my foot, creating a temporary foothold.
I launched myself, closing the distance to Jeno Wolvern in one bound.
Shing!
At that instant, Jeno Wolvern's sword sang.
The supersonic iaijutsu strike hurtled toward me in range, but I'd read that timing long ago.
Deathwise swung up from low right in a smooth diagonal, tracing a perfect circle.
Mindful of centrifugal force, power naturally loaded into the tip.
Its accelerating speed was a beat faster than the draw.
The result:
Clang!!
Jeno Wolvern's shattered sword spun fiercely through the air before stabbing into the sand.
Deathwise didn't stop there, halting just before touching his nape.
Perhaps because the fight ended in a flash.
In the eerie silence, I kept Deathwise drawn and asked,
"Looks like we've got a winner. What do you think?"