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His first swing was only to keep me in check. I understood that much, but the weight behind it still astonished me.

The weight could match a serious strike from Mateus. And yet, he still had his grin on his face. That was proof that he didn’t think much of it. Even his heavy attack spoke for itself for being no more than means of restraint.

“Kh!?”

It was extremely dangerous to block a master swordsman’s swing with a tender thread. As such, I used my dagger to block instead, but I was easily flung all the way back to the wall. It was the wall separated from the windows and the door.

I wanted to quickly deal with him and chase after Klein, but he forced me into a position where I couldn’t do that. In other words, he was skilled enough to deal with me with such leeway.

After being flung back, I intentionally jumped back even more and kicked the wall behind me. I leaped at the other wall in the corner, flying even higher, and then I kicked the ceiling.

Changing my movements from horizontal to vertical, I used the unexpected angle to attack his collar with the dagger.

Gideon stopped it with his left b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲ sword and then swatted me away like a fly. Once again, towards the wall separated from the windows and the door.

He was throwing me away from the exit so I wouldn’t run.

“Your skill… Looks to be better than Mateus…huh?”
“Well, of course, I am the leader of the sect, after all. If I was weaker than my disciples I wouldn’t have a face to show.”

During the battle with Mateus, I learned how to strengthen my muscles, but that still didn’t help me with defending against Gideon’s attacks.

I had a demerit insurmountable by physical strengthening alone — my light body.

No matter how strongly I stepped on the ground, if the weight behind it was too light, it wouldn’t be able to support the strengthening.

He attacked me two more times, but it was proving to be almost impossible to block them with a dagger that had a short handle and blade.

I immediately poured magic power into the dagger and turned it into a short spear with little over one meter in length. While I was at it, I did the same with the gauntlets and activated their fundamental strengthening.

Seeing my weapon change, Gideon showed a slight surprise. That said, it was not big enough to bring about an opening. He simply accepted it as ‘oh, that’s neat’.

“That’s a nice weapon you have there, missy!”
“I’m quite blessed with friends, you see!”

I blocked his swing with the short spear. It was so heavy my knees trembled even after blocking it with two hands. He was clearly stronger than Mateus. And unlike his problem with speed, Gideon’s sword was as fast as it was strong. It would be difficult to keep dodging it.

“You…son of a…!”

I forced my knees, which seemed to be about to give out, to move with a yell, and then warded his attack off sideways and tried to get behind him.

However, Gideon was a twin swordsman as befitting of his sect. His other swords rushed at me from the side I was trying to run to.

I immediately blocked it with the gauntlets, but I was once again thrown to the wall. My new gauntlets didn’t budge even after receiving that attack. As expected of Aste, he did one nice job there.

But even if my gauntlets were okay, the same didn’t go for me. Being slammed against the wall made air leave my lungs.

“Kah…Kahah!?”

If not for the Enchant spell that the gauntlets had, my spine could’ve broken from that crash. The recoil didn’t fully settle and it threw me forward. Then came a follow-up attack. But I dodged it by rolling sideways.

But he did not pursue any further. Finding that odd, I looked up at his face, but he still had the same old grin.

“…Why aren’t you attacking?”
“We are having a nice dance here. I wish to enjoy it some more.”

His words made me realize that his nature was quite similar to Mateus. He found joy in battles. As I tried to raise my creaking body—I suddenly vomited blood.

“Cough! Cough!”

And then collapsed forward. The last attack still injured my ribs even if they weren’t broken. I could feel my normally low stamina being shaved away.

Even so, I suppressed my trembling legs and stood up, setting up the spear. It didn’t seem like I could fight properly like this, so I forcefully strengthened my legs with threads.

“Now, let’s continue. Let’s start with fundamental techniques!”
“Are you messing with me!”

He attacks me with horizontal and vertical swings of his two swords. I dodged the vertical one and blocked the horizontal with my spear.

But that flung me back like before. There was a distance between us, so I swung my thread at his eyes to restrain him in place. He dodged it by bending down, and then slid towards me.

“That was Cross, next would be Ground Shave. And then Jaws!”

He was planning to mow down my knees from a low position. I avoided that with a jump, but his other sword came at me with a delay.

As I was in the air, I had no way of dodging it. I had no other choice but to block it with the spear, but I was thrown back again.

Every time Gideon threw a technique at me, I was being thrown around like a ball, making me dizzy. As the distance opened before us, he followed up with a double attack from up and down.

I dodged it to the side and quickly fixed my posture. I was about to set up my spear, but I noticed something.

Blood was endlessly dripping from my left flank.

“Ugh…”
“Whoops, looks like you couldn’t block it completely in the air.”

It was quite a deep wound. I failed to maintain my body and fell to my knee. My chest and abdomen, the vital parts of my body were injured, so I could no longer stand properly.

“So five exchanges… I guess this is it. No, for a brat, you were excellent. You might be the world’s best limited to your age. However, you were ten years too late to fight against me.”
“—Cough.”

Gideon slowly approached me. Convinced of his victory, he started showing some leisure. I was already unable to fight—

“This is checkmate. Rest in peace.”
“—I’m still breathing, you know?”
“Huh?”

—Or not. Now that he was showing some leeway, I still had ways to deal with this battle junkie. It was time to show my real ability that I used against the Devil at the brink of death.

As I stood up unsteadily yet clearly combat-ready, Gideon looked curiously at me.

I set up my short spear, and took the initiative to attack myself.