Overwhelmingly Bad Matchup
Kuung! Kuung!
Chatel advanced on Simon, radiating a menacing pressure. Each of his footsteps sent a heavy tremor through the ground.
"Herseba."
Simon backed away as he spoke to her.
"That's all we've got left."
[The third Authority, you mean? Little one.]
Simon nodded and raised his wand. By now, a brilliant golden cloak of light enveloped his entire body.
"Let me correct myself once more, Chatel."
"?"
Chatel stared at him, a question mark floating in his eyes.
"Our compatibility isn't just bad—"
Raising the wand before his chest like a sword, Simon declared:
"It's overwhelmingly bad."
Shwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah—!
Simon swept the wand through the air. Every time it whipped through the wind, golden sand came pouring out, swirling around them in glittering clouds.
In response, Chatel narrowed his eyes and extended his right arm.
Kugugu!
Kugugugugugugu!
The earth answered his gesture.
From the far edge of the arena, the ground rose vertically, then surged toward the two combatants at the center like a tsunami.
"No. escaping."
Even as the tsunami of earth closed in from every direction, Simon paid it no mind. Like a priest performing a sacred rite, he busily swung the wand through the empty air.
Shwaaaaaaaah—!
The golden sand streaming from his wand grew thicker and thicker until it blurred and blanketed everything around them.
Just in case, Chatel reinforced the Jet-Black Film coating his body—but this sand carried no offensive power whatsoever. It simply drifted on the wind.
"Here we go."
A moment later, Simon's entire body was swallowed by the sand and vanished—and Chatel's view along with it, buried in a golden haze.
⟨ Herseba Original — World of Sand ⟩
Chatel's vision flooded with pitch-black darkness.
The moment he hastily clawed his way through the sand and opened his eyes—
"……!"
He had been dropped, without warning, into the middle of a desolate desert of endless sand.
Fweeeeeeeeeeng—
In that barren wasteland, only a hot wind blew across the emptiness.
And some distance away, Simon was standing there. Both the golden cloak draped over him and the wand in his hand were gone.
"Where. are. we?"
Simon answered with a knowing smile.
"A dungeon."
Herseba's final Authority, the third one.
It was a technique that drew an opponent into the dungeon she herself had created.
A groan escaped Chatel's lips.
"Creating. a dungeon is impos. sible……!"
[You're free to think so~]
Herseba's voice echoed across the entire region.
Chatel looked up. Above the desert of golden sand, beneath a cloudless sky, two enormous eyes had appeared.
[Fail to read the room fast enough, and you'll die?]
Herseba's eyes were gazing down at Chatel.
Murmur murmur!
"What's going on?"
The arena had suddenly soared into the air, plunging the spectators into confusion.
"I can't even tell who's winning!"
"Shouldn't the organizers do something about this?"
Alarmed spectators, curious spectators, indignant spectators—reactions burst out from every corner.
Just then, the referee raised an amplifying crystal orb and spoke.
"We apologize for the inconvenience to our viewers. Observers have just been launched into the air."
The central mana screen switched to the feed from the Observers.
They finally had a view of the arena again—but—
"Th-the fighters are gone?!"
The arena was empty. No one remained. No traces, no residual Jet-Black to be sensed. Even the screen displaying the two students' Barrier Gauges had changed to a single message: Connection Lost.
"In, in that case……"
"How will the winner be decided?"
As the crowd wrestled with the confusion, the referee was every bit as flustered. He was cracking open the rulebook—a book he only ever touched during qualification exams—for the first time in five years.
"Th-the arena is, er, technically still suspended in the air, so the out-of-bounds rule does not apply, but in this case, since both students have gone missing mid-match, I would award both students……"
"Wait."
At the voice cutting in so abruptly, the referee's expression froze as he spun around. Who dared to disregard the referee's authority and issue orders—
"V-Vice Principal?!"
Someone with the authority to give orders.
The referee immediately bowed at the waist. But the voice wasn't coming from her—it was coming from below her.
A girl who held Jane's hand in one hand while licking an ice cream cone with the other.
"Hwaaaaahk! L-Lady Nephthys!"
"Shh."
The silver-haired girl winked one eye and signaled for silence. The referee clamped his mouth shut as if under a silence curse, cold sweat pouring from every pore.
'Wh-why is SHE here?!'
He looked up at Jane as if demanding an answer, but Jane was shaking her head back and forth with equal bewilderment.
"Want some ice cream?"
Nephthys beamed and held out an ice cream cone glistening with her own saliva.
Apparently she had cast a distortion spell, because the crowd seemed unable to see her at all.
Trembling, the referee did his best to refuse.
"Even if you asked, I wouldn't give it to you!"
With that, Nephthys swallowed the ice cream into her own mouth in one bite. Jane pressed down on the top of her head with a look of utter exasperation.
"Stop playing around and explain, please."
"Hmm? Explain what?"
"The referee can't make a ruling until he knows what's happened."
"Ah~"
Nephthys giggled. Hehe.
"I just moved the place they're fighting to another space. They'll be back soon?"
"……I'm sorry, what?"
"Queue money, queue money."
And with that, Nephthys wolfed down the last of the ice cream wedged at the bottom of the cone with gluttonous relish.
'……This is beyond belief.'
Chatel was certain he was witnessing the most staggering scene of his entire life.
[The dungeon's a bit bleak, isn't it? Let me spruce it up a little!]
"Don't overdo it, Herseba."
Around Simon, in the middle of that desolate, empty desert, countless structures were rising into the sky.
The scale and magnitude were of a completely different dimension from what she had conjured back in the arena.
Kugugugugugugugugugu!
[Kakakakakaka!]
A colossal temple, towering obelisks, gardens and statues, even a forest of high-rise buildings.
Like an artist sketching onto a blank canvas in a few deft strokes, a city was being born atop the desolate sand.
'…….'
If he did nothing, he would be suffocated beneath this swelling golden city.
Chatel activated his supreme dark spell once more—the magic circle of Territory Seizure. Black ink, like the wash of a sumi-e painting, rippled beneath Chatel's feet and pooled into the size of a small pond.
This much, and not a step further, was his domain.
Even Territory Seizure—the spell that claimed dominion over all surrounding ground—could only manage this much here.
[Well, well? Look at this.]
Herseba's voice rang out, taunting.
[If you laid claim to territory, you'll have to pay the price, won't you?]
Bang! Bang!
The doors of countless buildings and structures swung open, and the residents of this golden city—the mummies—began to emerge.
-Gyagyagyagyagyak!
Simon's maximum sustained mummy count in the arena had been 51.
And in this place, the number was—
Gyagyagyagyagyagyagyagyak!
Gyagyagyagyak!
Gyagyagyagyak!
Gyagyagyagyak!
Gyagyagyagyak!
—climbing past five thousand.
'Wait, Herseba.'
[Hmm?]
'You said the third Authority doesn't last long, remember?'
[That's about the size of it.]
He commanded overwhelming forces—but that meant there was no room to spare, not a single moment of leisure.
Simon strode straight toward Chatel, who stood within his pond-sized territory.
'Chatel only has one tactic available. He'll come for me and me alone, no question.'
Both of them wanted to end this quickly.
Simon closed his eyes. The moment the dungeon had opened, Herseba's body had vanished—but his thought-link with her was still connected.
No, "connected" was underselling it. It felt as though the entire world were resting in his palm.
"All units."
When Simon raised his arm, the teeming horde of mummies froze mid-motion and waited for the order.
"Advance!"
Kugugugugu!
A mummy army beyond counting surged forward, kicking up clouds of sand. At the same moment, Simon charged alongside them.
The mummies came in every variety. Four-legged mummies bounding on all fours, mummies with spears and weapons wrapped in bandages, mummies riding horses, even mummified giants wearing great masks.
Yet the eyes of Chatel—the one man who had to face this army alone—were locked only on Simon. He raised both fists.
Shwaaaaaah!
The black sand loyal to Chatel coiled around his body. This sand armor continuously sharpened into spikes and smoothed back down, over and over—a rolling tide of moving thorns.
Then the sand-armored Chatel straightened his knees and leapt.
Tueong!
A single bound was all he needed to reach Simon. Simon retreated, and in front of him a flood of mummies poured in.
Kwakwakwakwakwam!
Clash upon clash.
The mummies that reached Chatel's body bit and tore at him with sharp teeth and tried to ensnare him in their bandages, but the sand armor he wore raised spikes without end.
Kwajik! Kwajik! Kwajik! Kwajik! Kwajik! Kwajik!
Like a bundle of paper being shredded in a cutting machine, mummy corpses piled up everywhere Chatel passed. The giant who had carved his way through a forest of mummies finally arrived before Simon.
Buuuuuuuuung!
A fist of monstrous strength swung down—a single blow that could smash a Barrier Gauge straight to '0'. Simon slid backward, bending at the waist to evade it, and planted his left foot.
'Open Gate!'
Six Overlord tentacles shot out in different directions, tearing wounds across Chatel's body as they passed.
"Krehk!"
Chatel tried to drive his fist forward again—
Kung!
But a crushing weight drove his right knee into the ground. At some point, a swarm of mummies had scrambled onto his back and were clinging to him from behind.
"Now!"
Simon flung out his arm, and the mummy cavalry hurled their spears.
The spears, wrapped and spun in bandages, hammered into Chatel's abdomen one after another. Several of them pierced the Jet-Black Film, and he heard them strike the barrier beneath.
Chatel thrashed violently, shook the mummies off his back, and charged once more. Simon didn't engage him directly—he kept attacking only with mummies.
[Hey, little one! Forget the small stuff—try pulling out something BIG!]
'How?'
[Don't play dumb. Doesn't the structure of the buildings rise up in your head too?]
It was true.
Ever since he'd entered this space, through their thought-link, impossibly detailed blueprints of the buildings had been surfacing in his mind—so vivid it was uncanny.
[Build one. You have privileges here too, you know.]
Kwajik! Kwajik! Kwajik! Kwajik! Kwajik! Kwajik!
Chatel was marching straight toward Simon, draped in mummies like some demon of vengeance.
Simon plunged both hands into the sand with a thud! Then, as if hauling a buried boulder out of the ground, he dragged his hands upward with all his strength.
Kuguguguguguguguguk!
A pyramid-shaped structure of stacked bricks rose up in front of Simon, its scale rivaling the high-rise towers of Pentamonium itself.
Tueong!
The structure's entrance yawned open, and a ten-meter mummified monster wearing a giant mask burst out. In its two hands it bore hook-like claws.
Kwang!
When the mummy giant kicked Chatel bodily, the shockwave sent not only Chatel but the surrounding mummies flying as well.
"!!"
Staggering backward, Chatel gathered Jet-Black this time and hurled a fist in return. The Jet-Black shockwave struck the giant's head, and it toppled over backward, sand dust blooming in every direction.
Even dragged into a world like this, Chatel fought on with stubborn ferocity.
'No wonder they call him the giant hybrid.'
Even without invoking Jet-Black, his raw physicality ranked among the very best Kizen had to offer.
Shredding the mummies clinging to his body, he sent shockwaves rippling from his fists and blew away dozens of mummies at a single stroke.
Granted, this was no longer a matter of sealing Chatel's earth-domain magic by using Herseba—had it been a pure, head-on contest, Simon might not have had the odds on his side.
But Simon had no intention of backing down either. He was already building his next structure.
"Come forth."
When Simon raised his arm, a long, elongated tomb structure rose from the ground this time.
The lid shattered open with a crack! and from within, a dragon wrapped head to tail in bandages shot up into the air.
'A mummy-shaped dragon!'
-Kaaaaaaaaaaak!
It even unleashed Dragon Fear. Chatel's expression went taut as parchment, but his footsteps never stopped.
"Let's go!"
Simon vaulted onto the mummy dragon's back and charged straight at Chatel. Utterly exhausted, Chatel drooled through half-lidded eyes as he loaded both his fists with Jet-Black.
And then, the moment the two great bodies were about to collide—
Crack!
The world split apart like shattered glass.
Crrrack!
Crrrcrrrcrrrack!
BANG—!
The world collapsed into fragments, and the surroundings enveloping Simon and Chatel changed with it.
"Ghk!"
"Huk!"
Both boys staggered and dropped to the ground.
"Ah……!"
Before they knew it, the two were back in that floating arena above the crowd. But the collapse was already well underway—Chatel had left it unattended for too long.
Kwakwam!
At last, the foundations gave way entirely.
Kugugugugu!
Amid a rain of countless falling stone fragments, Simon and Chatel returned to the interior of the No. 1 Indoor Arena.
"Th-those two!"
"They're back!!"
Waaaaaaaaaaah!
Despite the staff's evacuation orders, plenty of students had stayed behind to watch the end of this blockbuster match.
Rick, Camibarez, and Benya sent up fervent cheers, and Elisa—who had been hovering half out of her seat, torn between staying and fleeing—settled back down with a belated show of nonchalance and chanted Chatel's name over and over.
"What in the world just happened?"
Rick murmured in a dazed voice.
The two who had vanished from the arena and returned presented a starkly contrasting picture.
"Hahk! Hahk! Hoooooh!"
Chatel was on all fours on the ground, breathing like a man halfway to death. His pupils kept trembling, as if he still couldn't process what had happened in that other world.
"Hah."
Simon, by contrast, calmly straightened his uniform. In his hand, he was holding Herseba once more.
Simon Polentia: 98%
Chatel Maer: 7%
A gap that could only be called overwhelming.
It was the kind of difference one might believe between a High Squad student and a Low Squad student—but the opponent was none other than Chatel Maer.
"Give it up, Chatel. It's over."
"……Bluffing. heavily."
Chatel rose on trembling legs, heaving his massive body upright.
"If you used. a technique like that, there is no way you came. out unscathed."
Chatel's suspicion was perfectly reasonable.
But.
"Nope."
Simon shrugged with an easy expression.
"Fit as a fiddle."
Even as he spoke, Simon completed the magic circle fastened at his waist—and drew out a Golem Core.
The moment Chatel realized what that technique was, an earthquake ripped through his pupils.
"Sorry to break it to you—"
A dazzling turquoise flash passed through the Golem Core and soared into the air, then descended one by one into the bodies of the dozens of skeletons Simon had produced.
"You'll be facing me from now on."
Flutter! Flutter!
Twenty-four skeletons, emerald cloaks billowing behind them, rose up in formation around Simon.
To conjure an entire colossal world, and then to produce yet another decisive-grade dark spell on top of it—
For the mere purpose of wringing a surrender out of one opponent—
the technique was simply excessive.