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Cain closed in on me in one go. His speed was not at the level of a student. It was the speed of a master. Not just that, I couldn’t even perceive his advance.

“Kh?!”

I dodged his big swing by jumping sideways, taking distance again.

Still, was it really possible for a mere student to be this skilled? Even if Cain was receiving gifted education, it still didn’t change the fact that he didn’t have much practical experience.

I just couldn’t believe that his skill to step into my range exceeded even mine, who had so much experience piled up since the past life. There must have been some reason… but he charged at me without giving me time to think about it.

“S̲h̲i̲t̲!”
“Hihahahahaha! Die, dieeeee!”

He was acting like a madman who had lost his sanity already. He was swinging his sword with all his strength while scattering drool from his mouth. I endured his attacks by blocking, parrying, and dodging.

After a few exchanges, I started to feel that something was out of place. Cain’s movements lacked the ‘active concentration’ that humans should have.

Like when you step into someone’s range, you put your center of balance behind and cause a recoil… or when you try to slash, how you put strength into your hand and slightly pull the sword as a result.

He didn’t show the concentration to make such movements. That’s why I failed to sense his movements. They looked like the movements Lyell sometimes did so you wouldn’t be able to estimate the timing of his attack.

But those weren’t something a mere student would be able to do.

It was definitely not possible. You could say Lyell only managed to learn them after training day after day and overcoming battles that walked between life and death. I just couldn’t think that Cain had that much battle experience.

Then, what was this? I couldn’t hide my confusion at his movements that looked inhuman.

“Is running around all you can do?!”
“Shut up!”

He lost his temper seeing me dedicated to dodging, so his swings became even wider. Using that gap, I attacked his flank with my katana. The recoil I got felt as if I had hit a boulder.

“W-What the?!”
“It won’t work! You commoners really are powerless!”
“Like hell being a commoner has anything to do with that. What the hell are you!”

This recoil was clearly not something from a human. That said, he didn’t seem to be wearing armor either. He was just wearing a ragged cloth on top of his uniform. I would be able to tell if he wore armor under it, after all.

“It’s the effect of the new drug! I don’t feel any pain, and filled with an uplifting sensation, I don’t even feel exhaustion. It even strengthened my physical strength and defensive power, and I even improved it so it heals my wounds automatically!”
“Thanks for such an elaborate explanation! S̲h̲i̲t̲, what a pain—!”

Hearing about defensive enhancement and automatic regeneration, I remembered the Troll he had locked in the basement. Did he mix Troll’s abilities into the new medicine? Maybe the reason the guy that attacked Finia’s group turned into a monster was that he was testing the new drug.

But I had my ways to deal with that too. I just had to leave it to my original combat style. Fortunately, there were more than enough places to hook my threads in this warehouse.

I kept my interval as I suppressed Cain with my katana, and at the same time, I coiled a thread on his neck over the ceiling. Then I jumped back in one go, opening more space between us while strangling his neck at the same time.

Then I turned around and pulled on the thread as if I was carrying him over my back, hanging him up in the process.

“GA-GAHHHHhhhhhh!?”

Having his weight concentrated on his neck, he couldn’t breathe and would die… or that’s what was supposed to happen. However, though he was flailing his legs around, he didn’t show any signs of suffocation.

I could feel that through the thread over my back.

“Wha-, you’re still…?!”

His body didn’t give away even after strangling him so hard and hanging him up like this. This was no longer something human. He used the medicine that he completed after continuously trying to mix Fungus spores and Troll fluids into it, in a fight against me.

The drug that he made was finished. You could say that he had turned into a hybrid that had a human’s consciousness in a Fungus and a Troll’s body.

Perhaps the reason I couldn’t wound him with the sword earlier was that his skin was already turned into that of a Troll’s? Then I could understand his current actions too.

He was already half a monster, so he could no longer do consistent thinking. That’s why he messed with my comrades, attacked Michelle, and even tried to kill me. He wasn’t thinking of the future. He could no longer realize the fear of turning Lyell and Maria into enemies.

But this way, killing him would also avoid future troubles… but, unfortunately, our affinity had also turned worse. Tough skin like a Troll, and body of a Fungus that didn’t require breathing. Even his joints were probably meaningless now.

Strangling him and hanging him up served no purpose. Slashes had barely any effect as well. In order to kill him, I could only tear him to pieces as I did with the Fungus.

But judging by the earlier reaction, I lacked the destructive power necessary for it.

“Then with Enchant… No, it would be hard even then, huh?”

Even if I Enchanted my originally weak body, it wouldn’t amount to much. It was only at the level that I may only damage him if I combined it with thread strengthening.

The problem was that he still had fragmentary memories as a human. If I was against a normal monster, I could brute-force it somehow. But he was still a gifted student of the senior academy. He had both the knowledge to compound drugs and the skill to wield a sword.

Even his full-powered swings from earlier kept getting polished after every several swings. At this rate, there was a high possibility that he would become beyond what I could handle.

My thread became slightly loose at my momentary hesitation.

He who used to rage unsightly, didn’t let go of that chance, and squirmed to shake the thread off. Following gravity, he fell to the ground. However, even if my thread loosened, I haven’t let go of it.

As I looked over my shoulder, he was on the ground with the thread still on his neck. No, it was different. His neck was stretched out, deviating from that of a human. He then went down on all fours, and his joints also transformed to match his posture.

“He’s gone…completely wild now.”

The drug’s effects went completely out of control, starting to deform him from his original human shape. Be turned into a spider-like aberration with a long neck. He started to crawl on all fours and charged at me as if leaping to eat his prey.