Chapter 77 – Duel start!!

Preface of the Author
About Yuki’s abilities!!

Duel start!!

Side: Yuki

(Grandmaster)「Right then, The duel will start when I say 『Start！』. Is that okay? 」

The other guy nodded.

(Grandmaster)「Yuki, is it fine with you too? 」

Hah, why did it come to this…

We were currently at the Adventurer Guild’s training place.
I received a sword, and it seems that I am going to be forced to fight this guy.

(Opponent)「The con-condition…… 」

(Seraria)「No need. My husband will definitely not lose. No, in fact, this level of trouble can simply be shrugged off by my husband. 」

Wha- , Seraria!!
She keeps blocking my escape routes.
Wait a minute. If I lose, wouldn’t this just draw a close to my marriage with Seraria?

(Seraria)「… Don’t even try thinking about something stupid. I can feel some weird air around you from here. 」

(Yuki)「… Hey that’s mean.」

Well, it’s not like I dislike Seraria, I’m thankful for her political weight and her strength, but that’s all. In addition to that I don’t know any of her goals. Well I guess I can’t cut ties with her, I guess that’s the problem?

Seriously though, why did this have to happen…..

The cause of this was the fact that I am Seraria’s husband and of course, she had to tell all the adventurers who had hopes.
Then the next morning after the adventurers returned alive from their respiratory failure, I was challenged to a duel. Normally I would refuse, but someone is sabotaging my escape routes.
To top it all off, I also receive some disturbing attention now.

(Adventurer)「Excuse me, can I talk with you for a sec quick? 」

(Yuki)「Yes, what is it? 」

(Adventurer)「Are you called Yuki? Seraria’s prospected husband-to-be? 」

(Yuki)「Yes, that’s right, but why are you looking for me? 」

After I answered that, all the adventurers started staring at me.
From top to bottom……
Even if I am a man, this kind of gaze hurts!!
I understood why animals in zoo are p.r.o.ne to stress.
Perhaps you wouldn’t be exposed to stress if you became a madman.

(Adventurer)「…… Sorry for my impoliteness but it looks like you have never held a sword. 」

(Yuki)「Well, that’s because I haven’t. I am a civilian. That’s all, though I can kinda use a bit of magic. 」

When I said that, the adventurers expressed their astonishment, whereas the girls on the other hand…..

(Millie)「Kinda? a bit? What’s up with that? 」

(Lutz)「… Well, it’s just same old, same old. Onii-san never changes, as good as ever with the art of conversation. 」

(Labiris)「…… He’s frauding, or perhaps we can detain him for violating the rules? 」

(Lutz)「Trust us. We can’t even get close to him. 」

(Riel)「Yes, that time was terrible. I was blown off in one shot. 」

(Labiris)「….. His way of fighting is fundamentally completely different. 」

(Seraria)「However, I have never seen Yuki-san in close combat. 」

(Ellis)「Well, Yuki-san did say he’s not the CQC type. He is the support type. 」

(Delille)「……. Whence doth this support type obscure his fort.i.tude and ascendancy that hath the competence to crusheth both thou and Mine life in but a single blow… 」

(Lulu)「… Because I have seen it once, I can guarantee that he is a better at using recovery magic than us as well. 」

「「「……」」」

Previously, I had a practice battle with the girls before the defensive battles.
Wel

l, it turned out that besides the battle with Aslin, Philia, and Labiris, they stayed within the realms of common sense.
Since a large scale battle was very different and may have held surprises, I trained a little to try to synchronize my individual skills and my consciousness as much as possible.
During that time, I received a wife, uhh, Hooray! I guess. Well, I had one mock battle with her aswell and I won one-sidedly, after that it was just training.
Then, everyone’s hard work paid off and the defensive battle turned out a huge success.
I wasn’t able to hold onto my troop though.

(Adventurer)「Excuse me. I heard that you were a civil official… 」

(Yuki)「Yes, that’s correct. 」

(Adventurer)「…… Wait a minute. Seraria-sama, could you please lend an ear? 　I would like to ask you something… 」

(Seraria)「What? 」

(Adventurer)「Seraria-sama, I heard that your marriage partner must be stronger than you? 」
(Seraria)「That’s right. 」

(Adventurer)「… Ah, eto. Excuse me but, Yuki-dono is a civilian and no matter how I look at it, I don’t think he’d ever be able to win against Seraria-sama… 」

(Seraria)「He is in a league for himself. Besides, he saved my life. I think that qualifications wise, that it’s more than enough for him to be my husband. 」

Seraria answered honestly.
Well, I guess she was talking about training.
At that time, it wasn’t only Seraria who had partic.i.p.ated.
At the battle of the wives, Seraria and Delille took the front while Riel, Tori, Kaya and Lutz were acting as their support.
Millie and Ellis were overlooking us from afar with bows.
At which point upon my experience of experimenting on top of experiments, I developed my barrier N°14 that stopped all of the girls.

My barrier N°14 is a multi-layered barrier.
First, a magical barrier against physical and magical damage is expanded.
It consists of 14 layers, with pure water between each acting as a buffer.
I also added electricity to the surface of the outside layer, making anything that makes contact receive a shock.

Well, the first, Seraria, was instantly knocked out by it.
Delille endured it for awhile, but after she forced her way through 5 layers, she couldn’t move anymore.
Meanwhile, Tori and the others who were supporting received some flame bombs as they approached.
I could only do something of that level because of the Guardian Appointment.

I was shocked at the sea of flames that appeared.
Though I knew that the principle behind it is simple, actually using it was a little scary.
After asking around a bit, why magic appears in your hands and is then released, I concluded the following.
You focus your magic in one place, decide what it should do by strongly imagining and then carry it out.
In other words, as long as someone can imagine and has a feel for it, he can use magic.
The amount of magical power someone can use and how fast it regenerates depends on individual talent.
And you can’t manage to commit if you can’t picture it in your head clearly enough.
Something I discovered though, is a detail in the Lance system and the Storm system. The Lance system was made to fire javelins repeatedly. In order to do this, you summon javelins around yourself and fire them at will. However you cannot specify a place to summon them. They simply appear and then follow the caster as if of their own volition, awaiting their orders, though the time limit is pretty short.
The Storm system however, is the opposite regarding targeting, also it has a much lower cap in regards to raw power since it activates right next to the caster. So when you cast a storm spell it is possible to specify where around you the spell appears, however once casted, one can only pour more power in it. The main problem is that as you cannot cast it at a longer range, the danger of your comrades and yourself getting involved is very high. Especially if you are trying to cast a large-scale fire type magic for example.
That’s when it dawned on me.
I can abuse and combine the two systems. All I need to do is get the range and targeting from the Lance system and the precision of activation and raw power from the Storm system.
In other words, by casting an empty javelin and firing the nothing spell I can trace the route it would take and by replication, reinforcement and creating something like an imaginary cable that follows the line that the empty spell took. After the line has been established, it’s possible to ama.s.s magic at the other end of it and then cast a storm spell as per normal there.
This is what I came up with in order to use ranged bombardment tactics.
1)

Do I really need to have it slowly approach you?
It would be easier to present it in the form of a bomb.

That’s what I thought.
Because of that, Tori and the others were annihilated by the explosion.
Ellis and Millie surrendered on the spot.

Actually I could handle everything easily.
Sadly, the beast girls Tori and Riel have very scarce magic reserves.
They used solidified magical power and spent it all on trying to pierce their opponent, they didn’t even use any magical power to make it rotate.
And so, it was just stopped with a「boing」on the point of contact.
Their amount of magical power is low after all.

(Adventurer)「He is a civilian, but he is stronger than Seraria? 」

(Seraria)「That’s right. 」

When the adventurer who asked Seraria received her response, he slowly turned towards me……

(Grandmaster)「Yuki-dono, I’d like to make a proposal. Would you please show me the skills with which you won against Seraria? 」

Eh, don’t wanna.
Why do I have to expose my cards?
I was specially acting as a civilian to claim the fact that I can’t do anything!!

(Yuki)「Sorry… 」

(Seraria)「Eh, I don’t mind. You can have a round against my husband. 」

(Yuki)「Wait, what！? 」

(Seraria)「That’s fine right? 　Dear, that would make for a good scene in which you can prove yourself suitable to me. 」

(Yuki)「…… And your real intentions? 」

(Seraria)「I’d like to see my dear in close combat. Thanks to yesterday’s mess. You have no ways of rejecting. 」

That was calculated?!
Seraria’s a scary mastermind!!

(Seraria)「My husband will win without the use of magic!! 　Because, that should be sufficient. 」

Seraria meddled further.
The adventurers began to get wrapped up in an intimidating aura.

(Adventurer)「So, magic can’t be used? 　That is appreciated. 」

I’m starting to get angry, i’ll seriously go mad!!
You’re showing a graceful and peaceful face. That makes it worse!

(Grandmaster)「Ho ho ho. I, the Grandmaster, will personally oversee this duel. 」

Ugyaa, even more trouble came!?

(Rock)「Since there will be no magic, the training grounds at the Guild is a sufficient place. 」

The old man Rock announced that we were going to fight at the training ground of the Guild.

(Aslin)「Onii-chan do your beesssttttttt!! 」

(Hiro)「Nii-sama is the strongest in the world!! 」

(Philia)「Onii-sama’s gallant figure… I don’t have a camera!! 」

(Vilia)「Onee, calm down. You can use the functions of Call. 」

The chibis added their cheering, I truly wasn’t able to refuse anymore.
Because today was the day Vilia and the others would be going to the child’s Dungeon. It couldn’t be helped that they were motivated, right?

When we were ready to start, the Grand Master was, of course, laughing in delight, swung his hand downwards.

(Grandmaster)「Hajime! 2)! 」

The adventurer in front of me is alertly watching me and his sword is steady.
It felt like he wouldn’t miss any opportunity.
It was a big difference from the adventurers who were driven out by kobolds.

(Opponent)「… With my b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword, I will show her why she should have chosen me instead of you…… 」

Saying so, he rushed in like the flash.

(Opponent)「Civilian, to handle a sword is an art, more difficult to perfect than magic!! 」

In a fluid motion out of approaching me and into bashing his sword swung at me from my diagonal upper right with tremendous power.
Oops, it looks like if I received that with my hand, it would go numb for a while~.
Even if my level is high, scary things are still scary.

Byun!!

Together with a nice ring, my sword parried from upper right into lower left,as I leant to the right and took a few steps back.

(Opponent)「Huh！? 」

The other party distanced himself quickly.
Why are you taking your distance, where is the follow up?
Either way round 1 didn’t work.

(Grandmaster)「Ho hou. That’s pretty amazing. 」

The voice of the Grand Master.

(Rock)「Masaka3), Yuki-dono, for all this time… 」

(Grandmaster)「Oya, Rock, you didn’t know either? 」

(Rock)「Because he has only ever used magic until now. 」

(Grandmaster)「My goodness, that’s terrible. He wasn’t a long distance, but a close ranged type? 」

What I did was easy and simple, but I still received praises.
Making use of my status, I retreated and shifted my sword a little.
In other words, it was parrying.
The means of dealing damage with weapons is limited because they are weapons.
It is a basic skill, to the point of being a need, to read your enemies options when you fight.
In the case of my opponent, he is wielding a big sword called a b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword.
The big sword bashes its enemies by making use of its heavy weight.
In other words, it’s not something that you can easily clash with from up-front.
This world is unreasonable with level and status, but if you defend against someone that has a b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword head one, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword will claim first place.
If you want to attack in rapid succession, you can use a one or two handed swords instead.
If you want to accurately stab, then you can use a rapier.
You can also fight with gloves like Delille. She fights with her hand to hand skills.

Well, it’s easy to say, but it’s scary to fight for real.
I’ve always thought that, but recently, I’ve been fighting more and more outrageous monsters as I leveled. I’m getting comfortable with fighting.
Ah, of course. I was pretending to go the bathroom at those times.

Fouh!!
Bunh!!

Such sounds echoed through the training grounds.

(Opponent)「d.a.m.n, what with your reaction. Seraria-sama’s story was a lie all this time…… 」

My opponent took distances from me.

(Opponent)「However, it’s not by avoiding like a willow that you’ll win!! 」

(Yuki)「Willow you said. 」

(Opponent)「Eh? 」

Closing to opponent in a flash as he closed his eyes.
Let’s think of the timing in a blink.

Gakin!!

For the first time, sword collided against sword.
Ara, he was able to react, what you’d expect from someone high ranked.
Just like this, our swords were still colluding.

(Yuki)「Nugugugugu… His power here, it seems to be above…… !! 」

(Opponent)「Guguh！! 」

No, it looked like I was pushing hard but it’s an act.

(Opponent)「I’ll push you to the end!! 」

Therefore, he putted power as he had declared.

Slup.

That way, I suddenly pulled my sword, reducing the power. It broke his balance.
Of course, the man was trying to collapse onto me.

「GAh… !? 」

A thick sound was heard when the man fell down, his face hitting the floor, facing the ceiling.
This right hand was on his left side.
In other words.
His jaw was beautifully broken.
… Ah, his jaw was probably crushed.

(Grandmaster)「Victory!! 　The winner is Yuki-dono!! 」

「「「Ooooo！!! 」」」

That way, everyone around cheered me, but that’s not all.
The man was going bikun bikun4) and his eyes were turning white.
Even if I wasn’t allowed to use recovery magic, I had no choice but to use it in the end!

(Seraria)「… Ah, you’re lovely. My husband. 」
(Lulu)「Eei, it’s not the time to be blushing, you have to treat him quickly!! 　It’s bad, the chin is totaly broken!! 」

I managed to return Lulu to sanity somehow and the man was saved without any troubles.
By the way, Lulu was saying that there was a crack to the skull after the jaw was crushed.

…… Hey there, you had to train at least as much as Kiyu.

Afterword of the author
It was not confirmed.
Well, you have seen a part of it.
Also, he explained the rules of magic…