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Gazes gathered on the complaining boy but it didn’t seem like he took notice as he continued asserting himself.

「What about my opinion? Like anyone would accept being demoted for losing.」
「If I lose, I’ll be your woman. And if you lose then?」
「……」

Hearing Ciel’s words, the boy fell silent. I guess he realized that he should watch his words, but the fact that he went silent is a negative in my opinion.

If he doesn’t have enough guts to at least say that he’ll be a slave, then it’s unlikely that he’ll gain the respect of other hunters in the future.

Especially since he was the one that asked for a formal battle against Ciel. Moreover, all of this started just from a false accusation, or rather, it was to satisfy his own desires. It’s no exaggeration to say that a great shadow is now looming over this boy’s career as a hunter.

Perhaps since the continued silence isn’t really advancing this conversation, Ciel shifted her gaze towards the guildmaster. The guildmaster, who went speechless, came back to his senses and faced the boy.

「The formal battle will be performed under the rules that Miss Cielmer and I decided on. Gancia, I won’t allow any back talking, you hear me?」

Likely to prevent things from getting any worse, the guildmaster said so in a commanding tone.

◇

And so the battle with the boy began. There was no audience, and with me excluded, the only witness of the fight was the guildmaster.

Within the large but uncharacteristically empty training area, the clanging of swords resound.

While Ciel rushed in with her dance-use saber and then retreated after a breath, the boy calmly matched her movements and parried her attacks with minimal action.

As their swords collide, Ciel’s rhythm is disrupted, making her unable to attack as smoothly as she wanted to. The best she can probably do is making light cuts on the boy’s skin. While the boy’s left cheek is bloodied right now, these wounds aren’t worth any regular hunter’s attention.

As it is now, Ciel can’t make a cut that’s deeper than she already made and in addition to that, the boy has been adapting, making it harder to inflict even the lighter cuts.

I suppose this means that while she does have physical reinforcement, Ciel using Dance Princess with only a sword and no music can’t win against a D-rank hunter.

Still, seeing how she’s not going down easily, I suspect that Ciel’s skill with a sword is probably at D-rank level. Considering that it’s only been a short while since she first held a sword, this result is more than satisfactory. And since this is also her first sword fight against people, the difference in experience plays a big part as well.

From an outsider’s perspective, it might seem as if Ciel has the offensive advantage from her constant attacks, but the boy had a composed look and to match his growing complacency, he even started to smirk. He’s gradually getting more familiar with Ciel’s movements, so he might start aiming for a counter sometime soon.

However, it seems like the boy hasn’t noticed that Ciel is similarly as composed as he is.

◇

「Is that all you got, C-ranker? No, you being C-rank is complete bull. There’s no way a high rank hunter would be this weak.」

As points of further improvement has been identified, Ciel ended her sword practice and opened up distance between them, which the boy reacted to with an arrogant scoff. Nonetheless, isn’t he awfully bright? For realizing that there’s no way a high rank hunter —Ciel— could ever be this weak, that is.

Besides, just like how the boy was analyzing Ciel’s capabilities, I’ve also analyzed his as well. While he might have a hidden ace, even if he does use it, it’s extremely improbable for him to be able to break through my barrier. Because of this, I suggested so to Ciel.

『It looks like he wants to finish this match quickly, so why don’t we have our first stress test in a while?』
『Fufu, quite mean today, aren’t you, Ain?』
『Despite how I sound, I am actually angry right now. Since you seem to be done with your preparations as well, why don’t you try approaching him while being wide open?』
『I’m sure Ain already noticed, but it’s really crooked and sloppy, you know?』
『I’m sure you’ll do just fine.』
『If Ain says so then that’s a relief.』

With our discussion settled, it’s time to show him the true power of a high rank hunter, which Ciel will do.

Before I noticed it, the boy was now raising his sword right in front of us. Still, since we left ourselves open for that long of a time, it’s only natural for him to make a move.

「Haaaaa!」 As he yelled and swung his sword downwards, Ciel caught it with only one hand. Though more accurately, she simply blocked it with my barrier.

Whether it was his strongest strike or not, I can’t say for sure. The boy’s face was frozen in a dazed expression, but perhaps sensing something, he quickly put some distance from Ciel as though to run away.

「What the hell was that?」
「A barrier, that’s what.」
「Haa? That’s cheating.」
「A sorcerer using sorcery is cheating? Well, not that it matters.」

Ending their exchange, Ciel slowly approached the boy. As she did so, I took the chance to put up an orthodox spherical barrier around her. With this now, he should properly perceive it as a barrier.

After all, while throwing curses around, the boy desperately used his sword to check if it was a barrier or not.

Amidst the torrent of slashes, Ciel nonchalantly approached the boy. As Ciel drew nearer, one step at time, the boy’s face grew increasingly pale. When there was only one more step remaining between them, Ciel extended both of her arms towards the boy’s head.

「Got you.」
「S-so what?」

The boy was immobilized just from having a girl younger than him put her hands on his cheeks, yet he still spoke with a feisty tone. I guess this is because there isn’t any danger in just being touched.

I’m sure that if Ciel ever had a knife or the saber she had earlier on hand, the boy’s reaction would have been significantly different. And maybe noticing something, the boy’s body suddenly tensed up.

He’s at a distance where Ciel can reach his cheeks, in other words, he’s within the spherical barrier. Perhaps seeing a certain victory, the boy then showed a grin.

「What are you acting so calm for, die.」

He pulled his sword back along with the right half of his body, and aimed the tip of his sword towards Ciel in a flowing motion. This ended up shaking off Ciel’s hand from his right cheek but the one on his left still remained.

Aimed at Ciel’s heart, the boy’s sword was approaching quickly. Without showing any intention of dodging, Ciel took the blow.

Well, that sort of attack isn’t nearly enough to wound Ciel though.

「Hahaha! This is what you get for being cocky-…」

Perhaps finally realizing the situation, the triumphant boy’s face began to warp in shock. Ciel let out a mocking chuckle before channeling magic power into the boy’s cheek.

A misshapen magic circle emerged on the boy’s bloodstained cheek and as it was supplied with magic power, it showed its imperfect yet functional effect.

The magic circle is of the fire attribute. What it does is plain and simple, nothing more than turn a cup of regular water into hot water. It only heats things up, that’s all.

Even so, it can probably leave a burn and if it gets too hot, it might even start a fire.

Since the magic circle was drawn using the wounds made by the saber and is, as Ciel said earlier, crooked and misshapen, it likely can’t cause enough heat to actually ignite a flame. At best, it would only be as hot as boiling water— though even boiling water is dangerous enough by itself.

Moreover, since it should be just faintly warm at first, the boy probably won’t immediately notice what’s being done to him. From then on, the temperature will slowly but gradually rise.

From warm, it’ll turn hot and from hot, it’ll become painful.

While it’ll only be at a bearable level of pain at first, how hot this steadily rising heat will go is something the boy has no way of knowing. And even if he tries to run away, he’s already surrounded by my barrier.

「It’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot! Stop, stop it!」
「Will you surrender?」

Timewise, I don’t think even a minute passed before Ciel asked the boy as he began to yell out loud.

「I lose!」 Since he screamed that, I released the barrier and the boy immediately sprinted away in retreat.

Without proper treatment, that misshapen magic circle is going to remain on his cheek as a burn mark, but is he going to be fine with that? While it should be difficult to even activate without considerable proficiency in magic power manipulation, it’s not a good look to say the least.

Perhaps losing interest in the boy, Ciel immediately turned towards the guildmaster.

「My win?」
「A-ah. That’s right.」

Perhaps due to how Ciel won, the guildmaster was drawn aback. Still, the boy picked a fight with a high-ranked hunter and left with only a burn on his cheek, so wasn’t this a good enough result?

If he wanted to, he could even continue his hunter activities immediately tomorrow. It might leave him traumatized, but you reap what you sow. If he stops being a hunter after only something of this extent, then it just implies that this is his limit.

Because of that, there’s no justification for the guildmaster to look at us with reproach.

「If he’s so important, then rein him properly.」
「Right, that’s right… Apologies for the trouble, Miss Cielmer.」
「So, the reward then?」
「I’ll verify it now. Your card is?」
「Reception counter.」
「I see. Wait for me at the reception room.」

Leaving those words, the guildmaster went ahead of us and returned to the Hunter Guild building. Leisurely following behind, Ciel grabbed a nearby guild staff and asked for the location of the reception room.

◇

While waiting at the reception room, Ciel nonchalantly touched her own hair which made me remember our conversation about the hairpin.

That matter is currently on hold for now, so I don’t plan on bringing it up right now. Still, there is something I’m curious about, so this should keep us occupied.

『Now that I think about it, most of magic items the guild has are pretty amazing, aren’t they?』
『What do you mean by amazing, Ain?』
『Just by giving them your hunter card, the guild can immediately figure out our remaining requirements for ranking up, you know? Since the card itself only has the minimum required information written on it, the guild should either have a magic item that can extract information from the card or one that can give the guild personnel here the ability to contact the headquarters.』

Chasse said something like, 「We can check with the headquarters」 back at the capital’s guild when we were talking about my records, so I’m almost sure that a communication device exists as well.

As far as I know, sorcery of that kind doesn’t exist and I naturally haven’t seen any telephone-like device yet.

『While it’s true that there isn’t any sort of sorcery like that, if we’re going by that, there also isn’t any sorcery that acts like a magic bag.』
『That’s true. But how can I describe this, I just thought that the magic items are weirdly advanced compared to other things.』
『Is that so? I suppose it is then.』

Ciel reacted as if she couldn’t understand my explanation, or rather, why I even thought of asking that in the first place, but I guess the reason for why I was wondering about this was due to my former world. A world that had no magic and sorcery, but had well-developed technology instead.

Despite having things, from lamps to transceivers, that were commonplace in my old world —and even other things that makes life more convenient compared to my old world— the daily life of the people here are almost similar to what can be seen a few centuries ago in my former world.

While it’s awfully unnatural from my perspective, for those that were born in this world, I guess this is the norm.

There are magic items that are available to the common people, so it’s not as if life is completely inconvenient. These are by no means cheap, but the magic cores that power them are easy to acquire as well.

I see, so in other words magic items would only keep running as long as they’re supplied with magic cores, right?

Magic items aren’t really manufactured at factories in the first place though, so they might just be unsuited for mass production.

Besides, I also think that the reason the guild always liquify magic cores at the same price is because it can’t catch up to the demand.

It’s likely that the upper class would be the ones to purchase a large quantity of magic cores. If magic items became more prevalent, the supply of magic cores available to this group would likely decrease, so the nobility might be imposing restrictions on the sale of magic items.

Thinking about it this way, it’s almost as if this world was made to exhaust a large amount of magic cores.

Though I guess that’s a bit too much of a stretch for an amateur’s delusion. As I was thinking about that, the guildmaster arrived.

Heya~! Lol, Ain really did try out the idea she thought of in the last chapter. And now they’re about to have their first proper chat with a guildmaster~!

In today’s chapter, it’s more of a battle scene plus a little bit of world building. but Ain and Ciel were literally just having a live practice session. The boy seemed actually competent in fighting but yeah, alcohol. The it did put show just how potent the Dance Princess’ power becomes when accompanied by music. Also, it was pretty funny how Ain was like “Yeah, let’s not talk about the hairpin day.” Still, on the minor world building, Ain just brought up the mysteriously fast travel of information between guilds. Imagine if they do actually have actual computers tho, that would be a heck of a curveball, lol/

Now then, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please feel free to comment. Stay clean, stay safe, and have a nice day~!