Leave a comment

A dark ball of fire flew towards me. As I was already in the middle of dodging an attack, evading that hellfire attack as well was pretty much impossible.

If I tried to awkwardly dodge simultaneously and got hit, there was a high chance that it would be a critical hit on me. If that’s the case… I braced myself and lifted my cape, trying to reduce the damage I would take as much as possible.

Boom!

Soon, a strong impact hit on me as heat surrounded my entire body. Feeling intense pain from the attack, I winced as the pain made a teardrop come to my eyes, which made me feel that the name ‘hellfire’ was fitting for the spell.

But I realized that my status wasn’t affected as much as I thought it was. As the fire embers died out around me and the damage to my health started to slow down, I realized that the spell was pretty much finished.

Even though I was definitely hit by a powerful attack, I didn’t feel like I had suffered that great of a damage on my body in comparison. Did I really just endure a whole Hellfire spell? I glanced at my remaining HP.

‘So I only lost one-fifth of my health from that?’

Hellfire was recognized as one of the most powerful magic spells to use against a single target. Even though the widely-accepted theory is that even a high ranked user would have a hard time surviving if they were to be hit directly by that spell, the theory was subverted right in front of my eyes… but I couldn’t stay surprised for long as I felt yet another attack coming towards me

Twang.

I turned my head slightly, hearing the terrifying sound of something breaking through the sound barrier. An arrow flying at a speed that’s impossible to block scratched my cheek as it went by.

If I had suffered a bigger impact from Wine’s Hellfire attack, it would have been extremely difficult for me to dodge that arrow.

“Checkmate!”

Tiara had quickly closed in on me before I knew it and gave a smug smile as she swung her Nightmare dagger towards me.

But…

“Out of check, actually.”

I lightly dodged her attack, saying something that was pretty rare yet was said in chess games when you successfully got out of checkmate.

“Damn it! How can you be like this even after being hit by Hellfire… Ugh!”

Tiara couldn’t continue her complaint, as she had dodged backward from my Excalibur which had swung down on her right away.

I tried to chase Tiara again as she tried to retreat, but because of yet another arrow flying towards me, I couldn’t move forward anymore and had to swing around to smack away the arrow.

Honestly, this combination of attackers was the hardest to deal with. If they were slightly higher leveled and had more sync between their attacks, it would have been difficult to guarantee my victory.

However, unfortunately for them, the three of them were lacking the strength to make me have any doubt on my victory as I am right now.

After smacking away another arrow coming towards me, I decided on who to target as my top priority. It would keep getting harder for me to win if I were to keep just defending myself the whole time.

Seeing me dashing straight towards him, Sharon¹ quickly switched from activating skill to evasive maneuvers. But it seemed as if he didn’t expect me to go at him first instead of Wine² as his reaction was but a second too late, and that was all I needed.

Since if it was like any other battle, The common sense would be to focus my aim at Wine first… and so I used presumption to pressure Sharon. Archers have a hard time at melee battles so I was gonna take advantage of that weak point.

Just as I was about to unleash an attack towards him…

The spell I had assumed to come did so just in time. It seemed like Wine was more focused on keeping allies alive rather than attacking me. It was understandable since she saw that I was still fine even after being hit directly by Hellfire, so instead of attacking, it was more effective to focus on defensive spells. That must be the judgment she arrived at.

But my target wasn’t Sharon in the first place. My attack was a feint. I pulled back my Excalibur which I didn’t actually put any strength into, swung it, and dashed towards Wine instead.

“Ah!”

She had realized her own mistake here. If she wasn’t actually casting a defensive spell and instead casted a offensive spell at me instead, I wouldn’t have been able to pressure Sharon at full power since I would have judged that I needed to dodge Wine’s magic spell attack first. But it seems like she made the mistake in casting a defensive spell instead because of how she judged that the ‘Hellfire’ spell was completely ineffective against me.

Our gazes locked onto each other for a moment. It was for a split second, but I was wondering whether to cut her down right there. Then I saw Wine closing her eyes and nodding her head, which made me realize right away she made a decision in her mind.

As if to answer the decision she made in her mind, the white blade of my Excalibur passed through her neck.

Then her lifeless body slumped slowly onto the ground.

“Ahh…”
“Whoa…”

My sound of joy crossed with their sounds of despair. But none of us actually yelled out nor showed any real sign of sadness for her death. It must be because everyone knew that the battle was not over yet.

Woosh.

It seemed like Sharon had activated another skill during that moment, as more of his arrows flew towards me.

Moving like a snake hunting for its prey with a blue aura emanating from his body, I assumed that Sharon was activating quite a powerful skill.

But I didn’t feel much threat from it. I’ve already gotten rid of one of the three, and I was able to clearly feel the presence of Tiara who was still hiding somewhere behind me ready to strike my back at any time. I wonder how long it has been since I was concentrating this much in a battle.

For a moment I wished to have an even more difficult and powerful enemy facing me right now since I would be able to make full use of this heightened concentration I am having right now.

“Urgh…!”

Sharon attacked me a few more times but I easily dodged them all and came up within striking range, to which he flinched from the surprise. I wonder where all that confidence that he had before the fight began went?

As he pulled up her bow again to aim towards me, I kicked it away with my feet. Since my attack was registered as a counterattack by the system, Sharon dropped his bow. Realizing his critical mistake, Sharon stood there with a shocked expression, and just as I was about to pierce through his heart with my Excalibur…

I stopped my attack.

‘Why?’

His eyes seemed to ask me that question. If I were to have stabbed his right then and there, there was a 100% chance that he would have died, and since he had dropped his item, the probability that he would have dropped the legendary bow for me to pick up was high as well.

“It feels like you have a different circumstance than Wine, so…”
“Ugh… I guess I owe you.”

He couldn’t hide his expression of feeling upset with me sparing him, but he soon admitted his loss.

“Hah!”

Just as I thought, the moment I showed a gap in my defense, Tiara used the chance to attack me right away. As my left thigh was cut slightly by her Nightmare dagger, drawing blood.

Her joyous expression of realizing that she was finally able to inflict a wound on me lasted but for a moment, an instant later she stood there frozen like a statue when she realized that the blade of my Excalibur was right next to her neck.

“How were you able to move like that…?”

With the way I dodged instantly, positioned myself behind her and aimed my sword at her neck naturally like flowing water without missing a single beat, Tiara glared with anger and disbelief to which I replied with a simple smile.

“Tsk! To think you’d catch me like this. So, why is it that you didn’t kill me?”

She asked why I hadn’t killed her yet with an extremely annoyed look on her face. Honestly, she was the most terrifying opponent that any other user could have aside from me. Since she was the only one who was able to inflict two wounds on my body since I began playing as Artoria after all…

Of course, that wasn’t the only reason. The war was still currently ongoing after all.

“Since your contract with the Chaos guild has been broken, you should make a contract with me now instead.”

1. Robinxen: Sharon got misgendered a lot this chapter.
2. Robinxen: Wine was also misgendered a lot this chapter.