Badronel Colosseum (5)
Watching the poison-wielder sprawled on the ground, twitching feebly, I turned and headed back into the arena proper amid the cheers of the crowd.
It wasn't as if my opponent had been weak. How could an opponent who dealt in poison ever be anything but a hassle?
The mere threat that a single graze of their blade could ruin you was terror enough in itself.
On top of that, poison users don't build their strategy around knocking you down — they build it around pumping you full of their venom — which means you have to fight them completely differently from an ordinary opponent.
If this particular foe had one regrettable flaw, it was that our matchup was simply terrible for them.
For starters, as the bearer of the Chief God's Divinity, I'm immune to most poisons. Whether I'm aware of it or not, my Divinity instinctively purges anything unclean, so even a toxin that would kill an ordinary person at a brush could never harm me.
To get around that, an enemy would have to inject me with an enormous quantity of poison, or use a toxin potent enough to overwhelm the Divinity's rank — and how easy is either of those things?
And even supposing someone pierced my shield and landed a meaningful dose, I have the ability to purify it. Purification magic is a dime a dozen among holy spells, and on top of that, I've got Mercy of Armadi — a straight-up cheat skill.
Unless they borrowed the authority of an Evil God tied to poison itself, tormenting me with toxins was probably impossible.
"Poor soul. If she'd only drawn a different opponent, she might have climbed much higher."
"What can I say? Luck is a skill too."
"Hah. Fair enough — though hearing it from you is grating."
I couldn't help a snort at Grandfather's grumbling. Yeah, fair. Those are words I have no business saying.
Someone who lost to a bad draw, like my opponent just now, gets to complain. That's a legitimate grievance.
But someone like me — who dodged every powerhouse I saw no way of beating, stacked up experience on fodder, and only ever fought opponents I knew I could win against — has no right to say that. That would be pure, unadulterated hypocrisy.
The failures of the fallen can be laughed off, but a sigh from the successful invites nothing but thrown tomatoes.
Having been banned from the Soul Academy forums more times than I could count for shameless bragging, I knew this truth all too well.
So why had I said it to Grandfather anyway?
"Well, Grandpa? Any other time, sure, but right now I've actually got the qualification to complain, don't I?"
Because in a little while, I'm going to be the one who fails.
"...That is true."
On my way back to the waiting room, I checked the bracket, and the memory of what Benedict had told me surfaced — pulling a hollow laugh out of me.
"Back when your Papa was still young and reckless, he was desperate to prove his own strength. Didn't know what to do with himself. Beat every knight in the order half to death. Cleared every dungeon he could find. And when even that wasn't enough, he abandoned the family's affairs entirely and wandered the continent, crossing blades with every powerhouse he could."
"That's when he met a woman named Rasha. Like your Papa at the time, she roamed around smashing apart every strong fighter she came across — and she came looking specifically to shatter him. So we clashed."
"A thoroughly enjoyable opponent. You may think poorly of me for saying this, but few people, then or now, can measure swords with your Papa. Rasha was one of the rare exceptions. If her technique had been a little sharper, she might have been genuinely dangerous."
"Even if we fought again, I don't think I'd lose — but she'd be far trickier than before. I've declined, and she hasn't."
Rasha. The one warrior whose strength Benedict acknowledged.
A powerhouse who ranked among the very top of the entire continent.
Her name had smashed its way through every troublesome opponent in front of it and, before I knew it, settled into the seat directly across from mine.
Chances of victory?
None.
I wasn't joking. I watched her demolish opponent after opponent from the participants' seating dozens of times, agonized over it, and came to that conclusion.
There was genuinely, absolutely, no way I could win.
No, seriously, how the hell am I supposed to beat the Apostle of the Evil God of Strife — an endgame boss who shows up in the final act of the game — with my current body?
Sure, fighting her through a monitor with a keyboard and mouse was one thing. But when I have to actually cross weapons with that monster in the flesh, how am I supposed to survive?!
"Is that Rasha woman truly the Apostle of Strife?"
"I wish I could say no, but yes. For certain."
When I first watched Rasha fight, I hadn't connected her to the Apostle of Strife at all — I'd just recoiled, thinking what kind of human being even is this?
The her I'd seen through a monitor and the her standing in front of me differed in both name and appearance, after all.
But as I watched her shatter opponents one after another, a creeping sense of déjà vu kept rising.
The way she swung her fists. The little habits she showed when pressing an attack. The trash talk she spewed mid-fight.
And what hammered the final nail into my suspicion was the ferocious aura that radiated from her when she looked up at Benedict.
Most people — even Benedict himself — brushed that aura off as mere fighting spirit and let it go. I did not.
As a hardcore Soul Academy veteran and the Apostle of Armadi, I knew exactly where that aura originated. It was, unmistakably, the power of an Evil God.
"Odd, then, that her mind seems quite intact."
"It seems that way on the surface. On the surface."
In this world, where an entire bloodline could be obliterated the moment their connection to an Evil God came to light, the people who worshipped Evil Gods were, without exception, raving lunatics.
Naturally, the Apostle of Strife was a human being whose screws had come thoroughly loose on one side. She looked fine on the outside, but what dwelled within her was unmistakable madness — a lunatic you'd never want standing next to you.
"Even if I'm wrong about her, it doesn't change the fact that I can't beat her."
The objective gap in power was simply too vast. Even dumping every drop of Divinity currently inside my body, my limit would be enduring a handful of her strikes.
I can't defeat her. Since my defeat is a foregone conclusion either way, isn't it better to lose gracefully than to have my identity exposed to the Evil God's Apostle?
My Status Window would fly off into the void, the pervert Apostle and the face-connoisseur fox would be the only ones cackling, but what can I do? There's no answer.
Haaah. This is genuinely unfair.
Why does the guy who screams You're so strong! Fight me! only show up when my reputation bar is nearly full?
Why block my path, dammit?!
"Oh. Benedict's daughter."
I was busy dragging a hand down my face, drowning in the feeling that my entire life was an exercise in cosmic spite, when a snickering voice drifted over from beside me.
The moment I turned my head to follow it, the first thing I saw was a mountain of muscle utterly unbecoming of the woman's voice.
Muscles that would make even a seasoned knight look scrawny by comparison — enough to make me question whether this person and I even belonged to the same species.
"You're really tiny. How does something so enormous produce something so itty-bitty?"
The woman gazing down at me from towering heights — Rasha — had a distinct glimmer of fascination in her eyes, as if she shared that very thought.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Rasha. I fought your dad, way back."
Her smile brimmed with goodwill, but my mind, facing her, was a hopeless tangle.
I was the Apostle of the Chief God; she was the Apostle of Nir, the Evil God of Strife. The instant our identities came to light, I knew that pleasant smile of hers would flip into its exact opposite — so I couldn't carelessly open my mouth.
"Hmm. Want a candy? It's sweet. Tasty."
"...No. I'm fine, thank you, Lady Rasha."
"Oh, relax. Do I look like a brat to you? Unlike you, my mental age is quite mature, muscle pig."
The moment I saw Rasha's eyes dip downward, I swallowed a sigh and readied myself — at any moment, mace and shield could come out.
"Bwahaha. 'Muscle pig.' You've got real spine. A proper daughter of Benedict."
Thankfully, the worst-case scenario I'd braced for never materialized. Rasha simply filled the corridor with a booming laugh, showing not the slightest flicker of offense.
Apparently she still doesn't know who I am. She seems to think of me as nothing more than Benedict's daughter. If that's the case, I just have to lose cleanly and bow out, and there'll be no problem at al—
"Or are you the Apostle of the Chief God, picking a quiet little quarrel with me?"
At that offhand remark, a chill slid down my spine like a blade of ice.
She noticed I'm the Chief God's Apostle? How? I'm suppressing the Divinity perfectly right now!
"Did you really think I wouldn't catch on? Haha. Benedict's daughter — you're impressive for your age, sure, but you're still young. Far too green. There's far too much about you that falls short of fooling me."
The instant Rasha took a step forward, I threw myself back and drew shield and mace in one motion.
It's fine. Benedict is nearby. If I just hold out until the tactical weapon arrives, he'll settle everything.
The only question is whether I can stay alive that long.
Have to do it.
If I don't, I die.
As I flooded my body with Divinity without reservation and braced for the clash, Rasha let out yet another hearty laugh.
A laugh so thunderous it shook the corridor and brought people poking out of the waiting room one by one.
What is this? Why is she making such a spectacle? Nothing good ever comes of drawing attention like this.
My confusion only deepened when, instead of charging at me, Rasha simply raised a barrier around her position, cutting off our voices from the surroundings.
"Calm down. I have no intention of touching you. Yet."
"And I'm supposed to just believe that?"
"'No intention of touching you'? Did your muscles swell so much they started invading your brain?"
"Why would I snip the bud of a warrior with such a bright future ahead of her?"
The moment I saw Rasha shrug her shoulders, her character profile came flooding back to me.
"Since you seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding, let me clarify — I didn't become his Apostle out of any faith in the Evil God. I simply accepted the offer because doing bad deeds stirs up far more powerhouses than doing good ones ever could."
The Apostle of Strife.
"He's still blathering on and on at me about this and that, but is that my problem? You — you're someone who can reach the same heights as Benedict Alrn, the man who once handed me defeat, or climb even higher. So why on earth would I kill you now? If we clash after you've achieved your greatness, it'll be the most thrilling experience of my life."
A complete madwoman whose entire philosophy boils down to: as long as she gets to fight the strong, nothing else matters.
"Well, I suppose if I snapped your neck right now, Benedict would come after my life with everything he has, and that would be a rather fun experience too. But I can always snap your neck after you've made your name instead."
As she curled her lips into a grin — not the sharpest mind, mind you, but no stranger to patience either — Grandfather let out a hollow laugh.
"You speak true. That woman is every bit as deranged as she appears. To treat an Evil God as a mere tool..."
"Hey, at least her brand of crazy works out in my favor."
A lunatic charging in to tear out my throat on the spot would be infinitely worse than one who goes mad in that particular fashion.
"Participants. Is something the matter?"
When an arena official, drawn by the commotion, knocked on the barrier, Rasha dismissed her magic with a disarming, good-natured smile.
"Sorry. Coming face to face with such a young talent got me worked up, and I threatened her a little. Seems I frightened the poor thing half to death."
"Ah... is that so."
"We sorted it all out with a nice friendly chat, so there's nothing to worry about. Right, Benedict's daughter?"
Catching Rasha's pointed glance, I stowed my weapons and gave a jerky nod.
I knew all too well that stirring up a needless fuss would put not only my own life at risk, but the lives of everyone gathered here.
Relieved by my response, the official left with a plea to keep the peace — and Rasha waved a hand breezily, tossed out a "see you in the next match," and turned to go.
"Oh, one more thing. Benedict's daughter. Even if you can't win, give it your absolute best. If you don't... I'm going to be very, very upset."
...Is that not literally a death threat?