What a Filthy Personality

What an absolutely foul personality.

Confusion. Destruction. Shock.

That was the effect Gerard's sudden demand had on the chat.

A common NPC, flipping into an enemy in a single stroke. Plenty of viewers who knew the game were stunned by the transformation — and even those who didn't were just as shocked, watching someone they'd been chatting with so amicably suddenly turn hostile.

"Should have done this from the start."

The only one who kept their composure was Seyul, who had seen it all coming. As if he'd been waiting for the moment, he raised his spear. It was a signal that the fight had begun — but his opponent lifted a hand.

"Wait."

Gerard raised his hand as if to say this was no time for a fight, and approached slowly. At that movement Seyul held still, and Gerard raised his own spear and leveled it at him.

The viewers shouted themselves hoarse at the suspicious behavior — dodge, dodge! He couldn't hear a word of it, of course, but a spear pointed at his face from a handspan away was plain to see. And yet Seyul simply stood there, not moving an inch.

Then, at last, Gerard swung his spear at Seyul!

...And the chains binding Seyul's limbs were sliced clean through.

"I can hardly fight someone whose arms and legs are bound, no matter what you say."

Gerard said it flatly, as if it were nothing. The viewers were dumbfounded.

Blindsided twice in a row, the viewers reeled — and yet again, Seyul was perfectly fine with it.

So he was originally a decent sort. The type whose fundamentals don't change, even when he falls apart.

Seyul had met every flavor of humanity imaginable during his five years in Another World. He could size up most people at a glance, and that instinct told him this one wasn't the type to resort to a cowardly sneak attack.

Convenient.

He stretched out his newly liberated limbs. He'd fought perfectly well with the chains on, but without them, well — things were simply more comfortable.

"A shame."

And so he extended something like goodwill toward Gerard for cutting him loose.

"If you'd just let me walk, you wouldn't have needed to die."

"You act like you've already won before the fight's even started."

"Yep. Because I'm going to win either way."

"Where the hell does that confidence keep coming from?"

Gerard frowned, dumbstruck. As far as he could see, the one facing him — Seyul — was nothing to write home about beyond an almost absurd beauty. Half-starved besides. If she hadn't wielded a spear, the same weapon as he, he would have simply let her go.

And on top of that —

"You can't even handle mana?"

Not a trace of even the most rudimentary mana could be felt from her. A human, already hopelessly inferior to other races, who couldn't even use mana on top of that? The outcome was obvious as day.

"Heh."

All Seyul offered the man staring at her in contempt was a smile. To Gerard it looked for all the world like mockery, and his eyes sharpened. Irritated, he drew his mana up, and an invisible pressure erupted from his entire body.

Even without sensing the pressure, you could tell at a glance he'd gotten stronger. The viewers were right: Gerard was now in a considerably enhanced state.

He had started as a lesser monster with no ability to handle mana at all — but that was then. Through training he'd internalized mana manipulation rivaling even the Orc Chieftain, who had only barely learned to wield it. And the spearwork he'd drilled day after day had been honed razor-sharp by an untimely survival-of-the-fittest contest. Power and technique combined had made him a warrior stronger than the Orc Chieftain. All thanks to the strength he'd gorged himself on through Drain.

Chk.

With the fight underway, there was nothing left to say. Gerard leveled his spear and thrust at Seyul — not a single strike, but a chain of them.

Gerard's Drain-enhanced spear speed was no different from a loosed arrow. And when that kind of velocity came out in rapid succession, it became a machine-gun barrage. The force matched the speed, too — each thrust carried enough weight to burst a man's skull even with the shaft alone. If a normal victim of continuous spear-thrusts ended up like a honeycomb, this one would simply detonate, body and all.

It was an attack that would have killed an ordinary person ten times over — and yet,

"When did you get over there?"

Seyul bore not a single wound. The swift spear had done nothing but pierce empty air. Unable to comprehend it, Gerard stared blankly at Seyul, who now stood somewhere entirely unrelated.

She had been right where he'd thrust, without question. When had she gotten over there?

Faced with the bizarre movement, every last one of them could only doubt their own eyes.

"C-could it be some kind of evasion ability?"

Gerard concluded that his opponent had used some power that granted superlative dodging.

"A formidable ability, to be sure — but now that I've seen it once, it won't work on me again. I simply have to guess your next position and strike."

Boasting that he'd found the counter, Gerard attacked once more.

He missed.

He attacked again.

He missed again.

Attacked again.

Missed again.

"What IS this?!"

Unable to bear the endless whiffing, Gerard finally screamed. It was a phenomenon he simply could not grasp. Every time he gathered himself, his opponent had already slipped away, and no amount of predicting her next position helped.

A monster's innate senses, sharpened further by mana. On top of that came the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠detection ability that came bundled with learning mana in the first place. And even with all of it, he couldn't catch a single trace of her.

"What kind of trick is this?! What did you do that your presence doesn't register at all?!"

Shock sent the words tumbling out of Gerard again and again. Seyul answered without a care in the world.

"I just hid it?"

"What?"

"Why are you so surprised? Everyone hides their presence."

It was true that a warrior might conceal his aura to ambush an enemy. But that only applied when the opponent was an ordinary civilian with an astronomical gap in skill. Against someone merely a few tiers weaker, it was impossible to hide yourself this perfectly.

Gerard, who knew this, went numb.

What ability was she using now? Could it be that this woman was a master skilled enough to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠toy with him completely?

No. Impossible. Anyone that skilled would obviously possess overwhelming mana.

"Right. It makes no sense. I can't feel a single drop of mana from you!"

A master's body inevitably stores the mana that matches that mastery. So the idea that someone with zero mana could utterly overwhelm him on technique alone was absurd. With that, Gerard refuted his own thought —

— while the viewers noticed something very strange about his claim.

"Do you really think so?"

Seyul gave a faint, ambiguous smile.

"Hmm. Then if only to correct that misconception of yours, I suppose I'd better come at you properly."

Seyul said it coolly — and charged straight at Gerard. Startled, he thrust out to meet her, and she vanished again. Appearing at his unguarded flank, she swung her spear and hammered the shaft into the side of Gerard's face.

"Gahk!"

Gerard groaned. His body, reinforced by mana, could in real-world terms deflect bullets — and yet the impact against his face had hurt him badly, even so.

"M-mana?"

Struck once, Gerard muttered in disbelief. It was a blow that seemed impossible for such a small, slender frame to produce. And the spear was just an ordinary spear — it couldn't be chalked up to the weapon. Which left only one conclusion: she had loaded her attack with mana.

"It's mana."

Seyul answered the trembling Gerard with perfect calm.

The viewers who'd watched yesterday's events with the Orc Chieftain couldn't fathom why Gerard kept insisting he couldn't sense any mana. The reason the two sides saw things differently was simple enough: Seyul had her mana sealed down to the last thread.

The way mana works here is astonishingly close to how it worked back in reality.

The power Seyul used was also called mana. And the game displayed mana as a mechanic too. So on a hunch, she'd tried channeling it the way she had in real life — and the results were spectacular. She couldn't say whether it felt natural only because she'd handled real mana before, but it came to her with remarkable ease. She could control it as flawlessly as she'd controlled actual mana back home.

If I can control it exactly like the real thing, hiding it from a chump like this is nothing.

It was even easier when the opponent could sense mana, rather than being blind to it entirely. So, having learned the ropes anyway, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she'd switched her whole combat style to one of conceal-and-toy. Her attacks hit harder too — the mana reinforcement meant damage landed cleanly even on monsters.

"Gahk! Kghk!"

Seyul kept her presence hidden and rained down mana-reinforced blows without pause. However hard Gerard tried to fight back, it was hopeless when he couldn't sense her coming at all. It wasn't even being pierced by the point — she kept cracking him with the shaft, beating him down the way you'd thrash a dog.

The viewers were treated to blow after deeply satisfying blow.

For Seyul, it was simply something she'd tried out now that she'd gotten the hang of mana — but to anyone watching without that context, it was pure toying. Unaware that her notoriety was quietly climbing even in places she couldn't see, Seyul gleefully hammered out hit after satisfying hit.

"I— I can't understand it! I absorbed the power of countless monsters with Drain. How could I, this strong, possibly lose?!"

As Gerard wailed in grief, aghast at his defeat, Seyul replied:

"Well, you getting stronger doesn't mean you got stronger than me, does it?"

It was an indisputable truth that left no room for argument.