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“—Now then, let’s kill each other. My lovely master – Ruphas Mafahl.”

Dina flew up high and shouted out all the while releasing gold-coloured light from her whole body.

That instant, there appeared thousands or perhaps tens of thousands… a number simple too futile to count of Metal-attribute raindrops.

It was a lump of metal that individually was not worth even catching.

However, it was a different story if you were to be showered by them all at once.

Needless to say, if you were a normal person, you would be turned into minced meat.

Countless steel bullets filled the air and in the next moment, Dina brought her hands down.

“Come forth, maidens whom I call. With thy daunting power, crush everything in heaven and earth – Cleta!”

Pronouncement.

In that instant, all the metallic raindrops stormed down. As if shot by a Vulcan cannon, everything on the Earth was shattered, shaved away and pulverised.

This… with something like this, I guessed even I would have to take some damage?

No, let’s not concern myself with this. I will just break through this.

By using the intuition and senses of Ruphas within me, I charged into the metallic rain as if they were rocks to be shattered.

Of course, a metallic blizzard blew against my whole body.

It was painful…. But it was not something I could not endure.

I swung my wings strongly creating a gust of wind to blow away all the metallic raindrops.

“It’s my turn this time!”

I transmuted many swords and shattered them into countless blades using alchemist’s skill.

I then proceeded to launch them all towards Dina.

However, Dina did not change her expression nor move from her position and proceeded to call out the magic.

“X-Gate!”

What opened in front of Dina was – I should call it a… hole in space?

As if there was a hole in the sky, it was an unrealistic sight to behold.

It definitely felt strange and surreal.

The sky was not something that was made to open a hole.

Yet, in that place was something that could not be described as anything other than a “hole”, and that hole sucked in all the blades that I had launched.

That being said, the Metal attribute was quite interesting.

It was similar to alchemy to an extent, yet it was something different from it.

The basis of alchemy is to combine. It was to combine various materials that originally exists into something else.

But Metal-attribute arcane magic was different. It was used to “give birth” to a metal.

Arcane magic could transform mana into a phenomenon. That was the setting under this world.

For example, fire or water created by arcane magic was no different in substance when compared to the real ones. Nevertheless, fundamentally, they were mana and not real fire or water.

Therefore, it was impossible to create a golem out of the water created by the arcane magic.

Correction, technically it was possible to create the golem, but they would disappear very quickly. To create a golem out of magic power would be impossible unless a person had an infinite amount of SP.

Anyways, what I was trying to say was that.

The difference was whether the created product was water or metallic.

In any event, to see a solid product being created in front of my own eyes was quite absurd.

As for the X-Gate…. I really can’t understand it.

Perhaps it was a magic that was not restricted to a specific attribute.

Furthermore, back in the game, this magic existed only in the lore.

Notwithstanding, even though Dina was a “player” just like me, she was able to utilise that skill.

Was it a skill that was learnt in these 200 years or was it a skill that would have been implemented in the next update…? Whichever it was, there was no way for me to find out at this moment.

“Are you daydreaming? You seem to have quite a lot of leeway.”

Dina sent the blade that I had previously used back at me.

Tsk, so you can redirect the vector of the things you sucked up huh.

Additionally, by teleporting to a new location, Dina was able to create distance between us and send in the next magic.

“Aglaia!!”

Light so bright that it blinded you – was that what you would call something like this?

Aurora covered the surrounding so brightly that I could not help but shut my eyes.

But the damage was negligible. It was not something that could penetrate past my defence.

By the time my vision recovered, Dina had already switched and commenced her second attack.

“Auxo!”

The rain kept falling everywhere in the surrounding.

The rain itself did not have any power or effect.

The problem was with the earth that had bathed in that rain.

Trees started sprouting from every available space and grew so high up into the sky. Those trees then became like whips and started attacking me.

“Tsk!”

I punched, snapped and kicked at the large trees coming towards me.

I then flew high up into the air to avoid the trees that continued to grow without bound.

Next moment, I nose-dived! I used a grappler’s skill [Meteor Kick] to pierce into the ground, and just as the name would suggest, uprooted and blew away all the trees.

I then proceeded to grab one of the trees that I had snapped and threw it towards Dina.

Of course, she escaped by teleporting away, however, I flew and closed in on her by aiming at the location that she reappeared at.

“…….! Fast……”

I used a normal attack as a probe at the surprised Dina.

Dina managed to avoid the attack by quickly twisting her body a bit and countered by slapping towards my face with the back of her hand.

But…..

“Something like that won’t work, you know.”

“!?”

—It did not hurt me one bit.

No, I thought, without a doubt, it had more than enough power when compared to a random small fry’s attack.

The one I had previously fought….. errrr, who was it again? That guy that was buzzing around me. That fire-attribute guy from the 7 Luminaries.

…. Err, yeah never mind about the name of a guy like that, it really doesn’t matter anyway. In any event, this could not be compared to a guy like that.

Getting back on the topic, even if two players were of the same level, each player would have their strong and weak points. That is to say, even if the original Megrez or Merak punched me with all their might, I would not have taken much damage at all.

Magic type is a magic type. The front liner is a front liner.

This was even more so since my character’s stats were buffed up by doping.

My apologies, but just because the enemy was level 1000 did not mean they would be able to fight fairly with me. Let alone 10%, I did not think a physical attack from a backline player would even do 1% of my max HP.

I struck my palm into Dina’s rib cage and activated the “Blunt-Edge Strike” skill.

When it hit her, her body flew away in a funny fashion and mowed down the trees that were in her path.

Notwithstanding, it was clear that she was still at maximum level.

She spun around in the air once and proceeded to softly landed on the ground.

However, her facial expression showed some of her impatience and irritation that she could not manage to hide.

“Haha, I see I see. As expected…. As expected, as expected. As expected of Ruphas Mafahl. With just one attack it took away quite a lot from me.”

“Why don’t we stop here, Dina? Someone like you won’t be able to win against me.”

If I had to describe myself bluntly, I would be a natural enemy to all the magic types.

The mantle I was wearing reduced the effect of all attributes by half. Thus, an arcane magic attack that did not have “no attribute” was unable to do any significant damage on me. Furthermore, due to the dress that I had equipped, I was immune to any status defect which might have been associated with attributes.

Additionally, due to the strider class’s gap-closer skills, I was able to quickly get close to the enemy and dish out high physical damage attacks that the magic types disliked.

Naturally, as a level 1000 back-line player, they would have prepared ways to counter melee players. Indeed, it was a fact that someone like Megrez was completely fine even if the enemy front line got too close to him.

There was some rare exception like Libra that he could not handle through.

But Dina was not prepared.

It was true that her level was equal to mine. However, she had neither the knowledge about the theory on how to counter the melee players nor the practical experience in her gameplay to spontaneously execute that theory in real combat.

And of course it was like that.

It was because she was a “test player”.

She was not like us who actually played the game up to our level. All she was required to do was to test the balance of the abilities in the game.

As such, she had no reason to figure out how to escape from a melee player as a support player. She would neither have found loopholes nor researched which pairing was a good or bad match in a fight.

She also would not have done something bothersome like doping during a test play.

“Oh, how kind of you. Are you saying that you will forgive someone like me who had deceived you all this time?”

“It’s a fact that you were deceiving me this whole time, but it’s also a fact that I was helped by you as well. In any event, I think it was my fault for being foolish enough to be deceived. I praise your ability on being able to do such a thing, so I don’t feel resentment towards you.”

Exactly, I felt no anger towards Dina.

Yes, I was shocked that I was being deceived this whole time, but that was it.

Ultimately, even now in the end, she was still included as one of the people that I hoped to protect.

She was deceiving me, using me. Yea that was exactly how it was. But so what?

I was not going to hate her just because of something like that.

I did not have such a heart that would falter from being deceived once.

“Why don’t you talk to me about it? The reason that you had to take such a troublesome and roundabout way to get me to fight the Demon King.”

“Do you think that you’ve already won? I think you’re jumping to conclusion. Please leave remarks like that after you survive this attack!”

Dina’s eyes shone brightly and she spread her arms wide.

The next moment, the land started rumbling and the trees started collapsing.

The waves of pressure given off by her magic power alone made the sensation of wind created by Jupiter looked like a gentle breeze.

It seemed like she still had a hidden trump card left.

“X-Gate—“

“Summon? What is it at this time…..”

When I murmured, I noticed that my surrounding had suddenly gotten dark.

What the…? Did the weather suddenly change?

I looked up as that thought was running through my head…. And just a little… I regretted it.

…….. Yeah…… Nah……. This was…. You know….

“……… This is…. Such a fierce thing.”

There was a massive gate deployed in the air.

That was fine. That was within acceptable range.

The question was the thing that was coming out of the gate.

A gigantic globe giving off the golden shine was probably… not real.

If it really was actually coming down, I would not be able to see “that” thing falling down at me as golden. To begin with, I probably would not be able to recognise that thing as a spherical object.

Even with all that, the size of that thing was beyond the norm.

The diameter of that thing…. was probably a few hundred metres. I would like to believe that thing didn’t reach a kilometre but…

She had most likely created it very high up in the sky using Metal-attribute arcane magic and brought it here using X-Gate.

What was falling down from the sky was…. Venus, a planet that was shining bright gold.

“—— Dawn Starrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

Matching with Dina’s yell, a small planet closed in onto the ground with a thundering sound.

Wa, it….. a little.

That totally looks like something that’ll involve the country of Gjallarhorn as collateral.

Not to mention that magic was famous for being hard to utilise well because it was something that should have taken a few seconds after it was cast before it started coming down back in the game. Yet, to use an X-Gate to bypass that and fast forward is a little bit unfair, don’t you think?

She had probably thought that she would not be able to defeat me unless she did something like this, and honestly, she went a little overboard.

Having said that, it didn’t look like I had the option to just run away.

If I ran away, the country of Gjallarhorn would really collapse and Merak would die.

Aries and others will probably be able to endure through this normally but I did not really feel like just letting it drop on its own.

Therefore.

“Very well. I accept your challenge, Dina.”

From the start, there was only one thing that I could do.

If there was a subordinate that had made a mistake, I would punch them back until they were rational and then stick my hands out for them to grab.

I was not good at thinking from the very start. I don’t mean to brag, but I was never one of those people who were intelligent to begin with.

So the things that someone like me could do was limited, and likewise, it was evident.

At the very least, I should expand my full effort in the commitment of those limited options I could take.

It was the same this time. It was not going to be an exception.

I gripped my fist tightly and looked up into the sky.

It gave off the feeling of oppression that made me want to run away, but strangely, I felt absolutely no fear at all.

Most probably, the “Ruphas” inside of me was saying that she could do it.

And I myself was strangely excited about what was about to happen, as my heart was pumping so violently that I felt my whole body vibrate.

I noticed that the muscles in my own cheek loosened into a smile and thus understood that I was probably laughing at that moment.

Flight.

I kicked the ground all my might and flapped my wings with all the power that I could muster.

Accelerate, accelerate —- accelerate.

Sound barrier – annoying, get out of the way!

Something like the sound was just a foolish and sluggish thing and I had no intention of waiting ages for it to arrive. They should just stay behind where they were.

As the scenery flowed past in a ridiculous speed, I put all the power that I had into my right fist.

Grappler’s skill [Iron Fist]. It was a skill that raised the attack power of the fist based proportionally to the level of the class.

Furthermore, the skill was paired with the defence penetration effect associated with the [Penetrate Weak Spot].

The rest was based solely on my power.

All I had to do was believe in my own body and my right punch.

“Uoooooooooooooooooooooo!!”

— I punched it.

My apologies for not being able to describe it in a stylish and fanciful way, but that was all that could be described.

I was not good at unnecessarily describing things in vivid or colourful phrases, and since all that I did was punch, I could only explain it as “I punched”.

And that was enough.

The small planet that I punched ignored the laws of physics and flew away into the sky, proceeding to shatter into pieces.

When that happened, as the miniature Venus was unable to maintain its form, it was broken back down into mana and disintegrated as if it never existed in the first place.

“…………………. No way.”

As if Dina sudden forgot to keep up with her evil façade, I saw that she had her mouth open with a dumbfounded expression.

Well, it was a justified reaction.

Even if it was me, if I was not Ruphas but the original guy that was in this place, if I saw something like that, I would have called that person a “cheater”.

In any event, it seemed it was more than enough to break Dina’s will to fight.

I could not feel any more haki from her.

“So…. Do you still want to continue? Dina?”

I asked her just in case.

If she said she was going to continue, I planned to use my fist with “Blunt-Edge Strike” on her.

Personally, I did not want to punch a girl so I would have appreciated it if she surrendered at this point.

I would have avoided hitting her face or stomach, but with the opponent being a girl, choosing where to hit in the first place was a bother.

I felt like I would be a scum wherever I decided to hit….

If the opponent was a guy, I could easily punch his face without holding back.

All the more if he was a good-looking guy. I would have hit him more than I needed to and I would not even stop if he cried.

“…..No. It’s my loss.”

However, her reply ended my needless worry.

Dina admitted her defeat and sat down on the spot.

Good, now I did not have to harm her any more.

Anyways…. It really did give me the shivers.

Even if it was fake, I did not think that she would drop down a planet like Venus…..