Rivals? (5)

Crunch!

"Ghk…!"

The bandit, split clean down the middle from the crown of his skull to his groin, loosed a dying shriek and collapsed. Ugh… a body cleaved in half was a lot more disgusting than I'd expected. Was that pink stuff his brain?

"Wow."

The revulsion of staring at a corpse with its innards laid bare faded almost as quickly as it had come. They say a bear can tear a man apart. I could split one in two. Did that mean I had a bear's strength? Maybe I was even beyond that.

So this is what happens when I actually go all-out.

I hadn't thrown everything I had into a single blow since my Strength hit 70 (62 + 8). Putting it that way made me sound like some edgy teenager, but I'd genuinely never gone all-out before, so I didn't have a better way to phrase it.

Either way, I had just done something that would have been utterly impossible in my previous life, and a thrill ran through me. If I could already do something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this monstrous, what would I be capable of — no, how far could I go — once that Strength stat climbed even higher?

Plasma.

My eyes found him on instinct. He was standing in the rear beside Commander Pazniri, and he was looking right back at me.

Plasma was the strongest being I had encountered among every Master and Fairy I had met in this world. He was a 7-Star — a height I couldn't even begin to guess when I might reach — and his Strength sat at a staggering 132.

I could split a man in half with a mere 70. If Plasma ever decided to show his true strength… what exactly would happen?

I wanted to know how strong he really was. I wanted it badly enough that I nearly forgot I was standing in the middle of a battlefield. For a long moment I couldn't take my eyes off him, staring back from across the fighting.

"Die…"

Slash!

"Gaaah!"

"Are you all right, Master?"

A bandit had lunged at me from behind; Aquaril's blade took his head off at the neck, and he went down. She looked me over at once, checking whether I'd been hurt.

"Yeah, I'm fine. You didn't get hit?"

"No. Thanks to Abraham, I was unharmed."

"That so?"

Only then did I turn my head. Plasma was still watching me. Apparently he meant to study the way I fought until the battle was over.

Stare or don't. Makes no difference to me.

I pulled my attention off him and looked ahead, where Kanisia and Abraham were cutting through the bandits.

"RAAAAAAGH!"

"Ghk! Why the hell is this bastard so strong?!"

"Don't try to match him for strength! Deflect it!"

Six grown men braced against their shields, but when Abraham roared and drove forward they couldn't hold. They stumbled back, and at one of their own shouts they abandoned the shields entirely, falling away to ready themselves for his next attack.

"…Fuck! The bastard isn't budging at all!"

Abraham didn't care whether they retreated or not. He held his ground like a rooted wall — textbook tanking. A tank's job was to protect his own, not go chasing enemies down to kill them.

Not that he needed to. The killing was already being handled.

"Hah!"

Magic spears punched through the air in a rapid, wet succession and buried themselves in bandit bodies. Kanisia's Magic Javelin (Lv.10/Normal).

"Gyaaaaaah!"

"Guhhk!"

"…Kh-koff! Fuck."

Abraham stopped everything that came from the front; Kanisia killed everything that showed itself behind him. A spear-user paired with a shield-bearing warrior was a classic melee combination, and it was classic for a reason — it was devastating. The two of them had been fighting as a pair for a long time, and they moved like clockwork, every gear meshing with the next.

"Dammit! Retreat! Fall back!"

The Snake Bandits had the numbers, but they had fewer Masters, Fairies, and other high-end combatants than we did, and the bodies kept piling up. In the end they made the call to run, and they scattered in every direction like cockroaches fleeing a lit room.

"After them!"

"Kill them all!"

People infected with the madness of the battlefield surged to give chase. A surprise attack in the dead of night had them even more worked up than usual.

"Stop! Stop! Do not pursue the bandits! All of you, return at once!"

Commander Pazniri — Prince Pazniri — would not permit a pursuit. He bellowed at the men sprinting into the dark, ordering them back.

"Ah— uh…"

"Don't chase them?"

The soldiers nearest the prince heard the command and pulled up short. They were well-trained; they followed their commander's orders to the letter.

"Master, the commander says to stop."

"Ignore him! Like hell I'm letting those bastards walk away in one piece!"

The Masters and Fairies, flushed with bloodlust, paid the order no mind. They'd heard it clearly enough. They just pretended they hadn't, and tore off after the fleeing bandits anyway.

"Should we go after them too?"

"Forget it. What else are we going to get out of killing those guys? And more to the point, our dear commander told us not to chase."

I shook my head at Kanisia's suggestion and led the party back toward our lines. I was still on the fence about the future, but there was a real chance I'd end up serving under the Witch Queen later. Better to start showing Plasma, here and now, that I knew how to follow orders.

"Hm?"

Someone else didn't chase either.

I dragged my blood-soaked body back into camp and found that, besides the command staff, one other Master had actually obeyed Prince Pazniri. A 4-Star mage: Chae Gillard. A green-haired beauty stood at his side. His Fairy.

Might as well take a look at her status window.

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

Holy shit. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I want her.

The greed reared up the instant I saw Entris's window — Chae's Fairy, standing right there for the taking. Then I shook my head.

No. No, never mind.

Her concept overlaps with Aquaril's way too much.

Different attributes, sure, but my Aquaril and Chae Gillard's Entris were the same kind of swordsman at heart: speed first, everything else second. Entris even had Swift Sword, the same skill Aquaril carried.

Even if the combat style and the concept were identical, a strong Fairy was a strong Fairy, and more of them was always better. But that was a problem for the distant future. For a party still in the thick of its growth phase, stacking redundant concepts was a bad idea. We barely had the resources to invest in one of them properly; splitting those resources down the middle would kneecap both.

She's weak now, but later on our Aqua will w-w-w… win, right?

Same rank, same class, same stats, same skills — if you lined up every condition and made them fight, the cold truth was that Aquaril would lose. Her attribute was Water. Entris's was Nature, and Nature was Water's counter.

…No. Aquaril wins. I'll make her win.

In my previous life I had been a ranker in Fairy Masters. Climb out of the mortal ranks into the Celestial Realm and the real war of calculations began — vicious, razor-thin, unforgiving. I was the one who had raised Aquaril. If she lost to Entris, that would be my failure, not hers.

Anyone who'd spent time in Fairy Masters PvP knew how often you ate an attribute counter. It was the easiest way to crack a matchup, which was exactly why everyone used it. And if you wanted to live in the Celestial Realm and actually hold a ranking, you had no choice but to learn how to answer those counters.

PvP in Fairy Masters had a distinction most games didn't: terrain. Every season the map changed, and you placed your Fairies on it and fought. Use that terrain well and you could beat an attribute counter outright. Attribute-resistance traits and skills existed too, among other answers. You had to master all of it before you could truly say you belonged in the heavens.

Okay, but why the hell is that bastard staring at me like that?

Chae Gillard had his eyes locked on me as if Plasma himself had possessed him. What was his problem all of a sudden?

Part of me wanted to walk over and ask what his issue was — pick the fight he was so clearly angling for. But Plasma was standing right there, along with the rest of the Witch Queen's command staff, so I kept my mouth shut. Raising favorability was what mattered here.

"The enemy's pulled back, so you can all rest—"

A scream tore through the dark, long and raw.

"Hm?"

I'd been about to tell the party to get some rest now that we were back inside the camp. The shriek from the distance put an end to that idea.

"Th-this is—!"

Commander Pazniri went rigid beside me. I followed his gaze toward the screaming and found a Master on the ground, clutching his leg.

"Gyaaah!"

"M-my leg…!"

"M-Master!"

He wasn't the only one. Masters and Fairies were dropping all over the place, grabbing at their legs and groaning. The Snake Bandits had released vipers behind them as they fled.

"Ugh. What a bunch of idiots."

I let out a long breath.

We had turned the Snake Bandits' ambush beautifully enough, but the cost was ugly. A subjugation force that had numbered over three hundred was down to around two hundred, and that count included Masters and Fairies who hadn't gotten back up.

We'd known the Snake Bandits liked to work with venomous snakes, so the antidotes had been prepared in advance, and the bitten were treated on the spot. Even so, none of them would be fit to fight for a while.

Poison was a nasty weapon even against Masters and Fairies who could wield power beyond the human — no matter how high your Endurance climbed, you never fully stepped outside its reach. You needed at least 80 points before you could start resisting it. Failing that, you carried the right antidote at all times and used it the instant you were bitten. And even that was useless if you didn't have an antidote that actually matched the toxin.

The last option was a poison-resistance trait or skill, but those were vanishingly rare, and they cost about as much as a Highest-grade Growth Stone. Ordinary Masters weren't going to get their hands on one.

Not that any of that applies to me.

I had Molt (Lv.2/Mythic). Burn a thousand gems and every status ailment on me vanished. Poison was just another status ailment; a thousand gems and it was gone. The only problem was that spending a thousand gems to clear a little poison was a fucking waste. I'd rather die and come back. At least that way my stats went up too.

As long as I had the gems, I was free of poison whenever I felt like it.

Uroboros really is my benefactor. Or should I say… my bene-monster?

It struck me again how much I had taken from that 10-Star monster. And thanks to the Uroboros's Avatar class, the vipers wouldn't even bite me.

I didn't love that a mere monster — something that ought to be hunted by humans — was playing at being my master, but gratitude was gratitude. Hmm… I was so grateful I'd have to make sure to kill it painlessly when the time came.

The midnight battle had carved a deep hole in the subjugation force's strength. The enemy had taken losses too, of course, and ugly ones — but we had never known their true numbers to begin with. For all we knew, they still had far more waiting for us than we were accounting for.

"We keep moving!"

Even so, there was no world in which a force sent by the Witch Queen herself turned around and went back to Baidu without ever reaching the enemy's stronghold. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠At Commander Pazniri's shout, the subjugation force resumed its march toward the Snake Bandits' base of operations: the Kutlanka Ruins.