Nice to Meet You
When it came to killing a living thing efficiently, the best strategy was to aim for its vital points.
Even if you struck elsewhere, shock alone might kill it, but it still wasn’t as efficient as attacking the places essential to life—like the head or the heart.
So if I wanted to bring down the wolf I was fighting now with ease, I should have been attacking those places. Instead, I kept stubbornly going for its legs.
It wasn’t because it had no vital points.
No matter how different Dimensional Beasts were from ordinary living creatures, they still had something like a core that functioned as a heart, and fatal points like a head.
I hadn’t captured one to dissect it or research it or anything like that. I’d just learned that much myself while hunting them so far.
So why wasn’t I going for its vital points and only hacking at its legs?
“Quit running around like that.”
Because I couldn’t get to them, that’s why.
Even the smallest beast protected its vital points by instinct, so would a Dimensional Beast really hand them over so easily?
And more importantly…
“…Ugh, annoying.”
It was too tall. I couldn’t reach.
To aim properly at a vital point, I’d have to get that much closer to it, which only increased my own risk.
So even if it took time, I planned to keep cutting at its legs first, lowering its mobility and fighting power until I found a sure opening.
It was absolutely not because I was short and felt inferior about it.
“….”
…Though, sure, I couldn’t say I liked it.
In any case, thanks to that effort, I succeeded in taking off one more leg and wounding both of them.
It should have at least made the total even again, so balance ought to have been easier for it now, and yet for some reason it didn’t seem very pleased.
Would it be happy if I turned it back into an odd number?
While I was thinking that, I heard it.
“Grrrrr….”
A deep, animalistic growl scraped through the air.
They said that hearing the cry of an apex predator could freeze your body, and sure enough, I found myself thinking that maybe it made sense.
But I’m stronger than it, so doesn’t that make me an apex predator too?
“Grrrr?”
I tried mimicking it as a test, but the wolf didn’t react at all.
Instead, the mouths embedded all over its body opened at once.
Then—
Whoooooosh—
It began spewing out a deep green mist.
The flowers near the wolf lost their vitality almost instantly as the mist touched them, withering and melting away.
…Honestly, it was not a very pleasant sight.
That just gave me one more reason to put it down quickly.
Still, I didn’t care all that much about not being able to see through the mist. The real question was what I was supposed to do about it.
It definitely wasn’t puffing that out because it had suddenly developed an interest in weed control, so it had to be bad for me too….
“…Mm.”
I glanced down at the ring on my hand for a moment, then shook my head and pushed a little more mana through my body.
I’d been thinking too much like I was still in a wartime campaign.
Back then, I had to conserve my strength for the battles that would follow, so I’d needed to kill enemies with the bare minimum of power. That wasn’t necessary now.
Even so, there was no need to use a cleaver meant for slaughtering cattle to kill a chicken.
Especially if that cattle-cleaving blade was also threatening its owner.
Horizontal, then vertical.
A pink blade of qi flew along the two slashes I’d drawn.
The cross-shaped strike didn’t tear everything apart the way it seemed it might have; instead, it only disturbed the mist surrounding the wolf.
Still, I wasn’t particularly disappointed.
I’d only done it to probe the mist while keeping it in check.
There were times when enemies surrounded themselves with barriers and ignored attacks altogether.
Those ones were a pain, but thankfully this one only seemed to be melting whatever was around it.
Afraid of touching the mist?
Couldn’t see the real body clearly because of it?
“Fine. Then I’ll just blow away the mist with it.”
I folded my arm back until my hand was near the left side of my waist.
It was the stance of a iaijutsu draw.
The only difference was that my sword wasn’t in a scabbard.
Sensing that something was wrong far too late, the wolf lunged at me, but because it had to close the distance after dodging the qi I’d just sent out, by the time it reached me, my blade had already been swung.
Canaria Style
Leap
* * *
“Haa… haa…!”
Journey ran without stopping.
Her breath burned, and her legs felt as if they were on fire, but she didn’t slow down.
“Kana…!”
When Journey came to her senses after feeling that ominous vibration, like it was striking at her soul, her body was already running along the path she’d once walked with Kana.
Then, all at once, she remembered Kana looking up at the mountain.
She’d thought it was strange back then, but now she understood why Kana had done it.
Kana knew.
She knew there was a greater threat lurking there than an ogre.
Every time a massive howl echoed out, and every time heavy tremors rolled up from the ground, Journey’s heart grew more frantic.
A road that had only seemed moderately long when she’d walked it now felt absurdly far away.
The viewers who couldn’t feel the same resonance Journey and the others had felt stared strangely at her as she ran like a madwoman.
After a long sprint with no time to explain herself, Journey finally saw something enormous and dark green ahead.
“A Dimensional Beast…?!”
The giant thing was a Dimensional Beast.
“A level 78?!”
“Why the hell did something like that pop out here?!”
A level 78 Dimensional Beast, no less.
It was more than twenty levels higher than Yuki, who was the highest-leveled player among them.
The players who arrived later, following Journey, also stared at the beast in horror.
“…This isn’t the time for that! Kana, where’s Kana?”
Could Kana really hold out against a Dimensional Beast that powerful?
Journey frantically searched for her.
“Over there…!”
One of the players pointed toward something with an outstretched hand.
There stood a girl with pink hair.
Already a small girl, she looked even smaller standing before the massive Dimensional Beast.
Her frame was so slight it looked as though a single breath from the beast would send her flying.
And yet Kana faced the wolf without yielding even an inch.
Every time the little bird beat its wings, the wolf screamed.
No matter how much it attacked, the enormous wolf that seemed as if it would never budge only grew more and more wounded, twisting in pain.
A girl dancing beneath the moonlight, dominating a massive wolf.
The sight was so unreal that Journey could only stare, speechless, at the battle between them.
Fierce exchanges flew back and forth, and mist burst from the wolf’s body.
In response, Kana also drew herself into a stance, preparing to swing her sword.
When Kana’s relentless offensive finally paused, the wolf charged.
“Kana…!”
Journey screamed at the sight of the massive wolf rushing Kana, but the next moment she fell silent.
The sword traced an elegant curve.
Its speed was by no means great.
Like a bird that had briefly alighted, only to rise again into the sky, the blade soared gently upward.
Journey was not the only one entranced by that soft yet powerful beat of wings.
“Wow….”
Gasps spilled out from all around.
In particular, the player with a sword at his waist had his mouth hanging so wide Journey worried his jaw might have dislocated.
She could understand his feelings perfectly.
So you can use a sword like that…
Journey had thought of swords as nothing more than tools.
Tools to strike, to stab, to cut.
No matter how skilled you were, she’d thought a sword could never go beyond those three uses.
…That’s what I thought.
But the moment she saw Kana swing her blade, Journey realized that everything she’d believed until now had been completely wrong.
The bird spread its wings and flew.
Sometimes it wavered, sometimes it plunged toward the ground, but in the end it always turned toward the sky.
A sword containing the fierce will to rise toward the heavens.
The mist that had wrapped around the wolf had long since been scattered by those wingbeats.
“Maybe I should really learn swordsmanship….”
Enraptured by the bird’s mesmerizing flight, Journey murmured to herself.
Of course, even if she learned it, she’d never be able to do that, but simply watching it made the urge rise in her naturally.
“Everything I’ve done until now was child’s play….”
“I should’ve become a swordsman too. I went and chose some alchemy job for nothing, and now I’m suffering for it. Sigh.”
“Should I change now…?”
Players who had fallen under the spell of swordsmanship spat out words tangled with despair, regret, and all sorts of mixed emotions.
And while they were at it, the pink bird that had been shredding the wolf’s body without pause finally pierced its head.
Or so she thought.
“Ah…!”
A mournful cry escaped Journey’s lips.
At the very last instant, the wolf twisted its body desperately, and thanks to that, the sword that should have been driven straight into the center of its head only scraped across one side of it.
Scraped across, yes—but the truth was that the head was effectively split open halfway, so it was clearly a fatal wound.
Thud—
The giant wolf collapsed to the ground.
The dust that rose from the impact slowly settled, and the wolf’s eyes, now fully visible, still burned with ferocious rage.
Even so, there was nothing a wolf that had been hacked to pieces and left dangling with half its head gone could do.
It could only breathe harshly and glare up at Kana with resentment.
Tap.
Kana took a light step forward and stood before the wolf, looking somehow pleased.
Journey took a deep breath.
Huuuu—
“Kaaaana!”
“…!”
Kana, who had been so focused on the fight that she hadn’t noticed Journey and the other players approaching, jerked her shoulders in surprise.
Journey was startled too, her eyes going wide.
Even taking into account that she hadn’t known Kana for very long, this was the first time Journey had ever seen her react like that.
The Kana she knew was always calm and expressionless, blunt and hard to read.
She was acting as if she hadn’t been startled at all, but Journey had seen it clearly: those wide eyes as she turned to look back at her.
A teasing smile rose to Journey’s lips as she walked closer.
“Kana, were you surprised?”
“I wasn’t surprised.”
“Aw, you were definitely surprised.”
“…I wasn’t surprised.”
Kana denied it with perfect, deadpan consistency, not even changing a single particle of her words.
Amused by how cute she looked, Journey turned her gaze to the wolf.
“It’s huge up close.”
It really was an impressive size.
If it had looked properly alive instead of the way it did now, she might not have found it disgusting at all, but instead been awed by its sheer presence.
Just how strong was Kana to bring down something like this without a scratch?
When Journey looked back at her, Kana simply blinked slowly.
“Anyway, the flower bed got wrecked….”
It had been such a pretty flower bed.
It hadn’t been completely obliterated, but between being crushed, melted, and cut by the blade, a large portion of it had been horribly ruined.
Journey had wanted to see the flower bed under the moonlight, but not like this. As she looked around with a voice full of regret, she found something.
“This is….”
A flower that had stubbornly kept its head up even through the fierce battle.
It was the pink flower Kana had stared at for a long time when they’d come here earlier.
Journey carefully crouched down, worried she might crush it.
Leaving Journey to it, Kana glared at the wolf in irritation, then lifted her sword and brought it down with such force it looked as though she meant to drive the wolf’s head into the ground.
…What on earth is she so grumpy about?
Sweating at Kana’s inexplicable behavior, Journey called out to her loudly.
“Kana, look at this!”
“?”
Kana stopped swinging her sword and turned toward her.
“It’s a flower you like.”
Even in the middle of the battlefield, the pink flower and the little patch around it had somehow escaped the fight unharmed.
Kana, who had come to stand beside her without Journey noticing, also looked down blankly the way Journey did.
A small pink flower, sparkling in the moonlight.
“Doesn’t this flower look like Kana?”
Journey voiced the impression that had suddenly come to her during the day.
It wasn’t only because it was pink.
Its small size compared to other flowers, its faintly sweet fragrance, and the detached, almost serene air it gave off.
…Was that too cringey?
It’s not like I was flirting or anything….
Maybe it was the mana spilling from the moon itself.
Carried away by the mood, Journey had spoken without thinking, and now the embarrassment rushing in made her face burn.
She turned to tell Kana to forget she’d said anything, only to meet Kana’s gaze fixed on her without blinking.
“…What’s wrong?”
At first glance her face looked no different from usual, but if you looked closer, there were differences.
Her eyes were a little wider, her lips slightly parted. Her cheeks had a faint blush to them.
She looked exactly like someone who’d heard something they never expected to hear.
Even at Journey’s question, Kana said nothing, just stared at her face.
Then, suddenly, she snapped her head away.
“…Nothing.”
After that, she turned her back and trudged off, and Journey, still sitting there like an idiot, followed Kana’s back with her eyes.
When Kana’s little shoulders grew even smaller in the distance and the distance became too great for her voice to reach, Journey muttered to herself.
“…Was what I said really that cringey?”
She hadn’t expected such a reaction.
Journey felt, just a little, as though her heart had been hurt.
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