40 Episode 39 Marathon and Gliding

Thinking while running.

If we estimate 10 minutes per lap, 50 laps will take 500 minutes, or about 8 hours. That's about eight hours.

Of course I won't get tired after 8 hours of running, but I wonder if I should take an exam to test my endurance when I know I won't get tired after that.

In the end, though, I had to run. This time, I thought as I slowed down to avoid falling off the scaffolding and turned a corner.

Come to think of it, I've been told to run 50 laps, but I haven't been told to run 50 laps.

I think I was faster than my current speed when I flew purely in the air without using my legs.

...... Doesn't this mean that I'm being dragged down by my legs now?

Try floating in the air for a while and accelerating. I can feel my speed gradually increasing. That's what I thought.

Soon the next corner comes. I couldn't make the turn, but it doesn't matter, there's no need to fly along the wall.

In order to avoid personal injury, I increased my altitude, and at a certain point, my acceleration suddenly slowed down. It was about two and a half meters from the ground.

If I lower the altitude a little, the acceleration returns. I don't know why, but if you just want to move fast, this seems to be the best place.

Perhaps magic has something like the ground effect of an airplane.

But I don't think the magic is actually creating wind or lift.

I accelerate steadily, probably rounding the next corner in less than two minutes. The acceleration is still going on.

It seems that I am flying in a semicircle, with the outer wall inside the semicircle, rather than turning without killing my speed and turning the next corner.

If you were to check the trajectory with a car navigation system or something, it would probably look like a track in a track and field stadium.

Well, if the guild's expected route is a track, I'll probably run into the audience area and then come back to the original course.

But I can't help it, because I'm faster. I pass the starting point, gaining more speed on the straight. It probably took me less than five minutes.

I look at the card, and it clearly says "2 laps".

The acceleration seems to weaken as you get faster, but it's still there. I don't feel any air resistance, but the magic must be doing something with its magic power.

No, if the acceleration is constant, the kinetic energy per unit of time increases as the speed increases. If the decrease in acceleration is only due to that, then how much more can you accelerate?

I don't feel like doing ....... It would be nice if the acceleration stopped at a convenient transonic speed, but if the instantaneous output of the magic power fell below the output needed to cancel the shock wave as soon as it reached the speed of sound, and the explosion scattered, we would be blinded.

If there was a news report the next day, it would have said something like "the whole body was hit hard". If the body or head is safe, there is a possibility that it can be regenerated, but I don't want to even think about trying it.

Even if it goes up, it should be limited to the speed of a bullet train, about 300 km/h, or 25 laps per hour. I think I can get away with that. I'll deploy the magic armor, though. At higher speeds, even a flying pebble can become a weapon.

A stationary pebble hitting your head when you are flying at 300 km/h is equivalent to being hit in the head by a pebble flying at 300 km/h.

Not to mention if you hit a tree.

You should also avoid taking things out of the item box. I've never taken something out while speeding up, but if it comes out while stationary, it's suicidal.

On the other hand, if it comes out at my current speed, I can make a powerful weapon just by stuffing a rock in the item box, so I'll try that later.

I'm on to the next round. It's getting a little hard to fly along the long side of the city. The power cannot keep up with the accelerating turn.

I decided to fly in a slightly circular orbit. The shorter side is almost ignored. The path is also ignored. Just fly over the ocean.

The azure sea is not calm, but it is not rough either. It will not affect your flight.

Hopefully the laps will count. ......

Despite my fears, the card recorded my third lap. The time is probably faster than before. It should have taken less than four minutes.

From there, I continued to accelerate steadily, and by lap 6, I was probably under 3 minutes.

But I didn't slow down, and finally, on lap 20, I think I completed a lap in about two minutes.

I felt like I could still accelerate, but I didn't want to risk it.

Now that I finally have enough magic power, I'm ready to kill the demons.

But I can't use weapons. It's in the item box.

I'm not going to try to get it out at this speed, and slowing down is a waste of time.

So I'm going to use magic. That's what I was going to do in the first place.

At any rate, I aimed at the left edge of the tree in front of me and fired a rock spear at it.

When I turned around, I saw that the tree was partially gouged in the exact place where I aimed.

It seems that the speed of the rock spear is determined not by its relative speed from me, but by its relative speed from the air or something at the point of appearance.

There is no such thing as an absolute velocity from space. Unless the theory of celestial motion is correct in this world and the universe is not expanding.

I don't know the exact definition of ...... space.

Anyway, it is nice to know that if I aim at a target, it will fly there. I didn't have to calculate the speed at which I was flying and shoot magic.

But instead, by the time it lands, I'm flying far ahead of it. So I had to make sure I killed it with the first shot.

So I'm going to use the explosive shells I used at that time instead of the blue persimmon ...... that killed the crab. I don't care if the demon explodes and disperses peacefully, since I'm not going to collect the corpse anyway.

The monsters I saw here were obviously weaker than those crabs, but overkill is just fine. We have too much power anyway.

I circled the area with about ten cannonballs around my body, hitting every demon I saw.

When I had ten rounds left, the card said "40 rounds, 1524 points.

I don't know what defeat points are, but when I looked at it after killing the black wolf, it had increased by two, so I guess I'll be exempted from the E rank battle test with about 100 points.

I don't know how much the D rank is, but let's just annihilate them without slowing down.

I kept going around, and the goal was in sight. On the last straight, I didn't slow down at all, but kept accelerating until the end, and then slowed down.

Then I started to decelerate, but this took a surprisingly long time.

Before I knew it, I had passed over the land and stopped, probably about two kilometers from the ocean. When we thought it had finally stopped, it was now being launched upward.

I looked down and saw that the fish was about 2 meters in size from above?　It looked like a vicious tuna. Its teeth were sharp.

Its mouth was open, so it must have been trying to eat me, but the magical armor must have blocked it. That's annoying.

I fired three of my extra explosive shells at the fish as it tried to dive, and it came back to the surface. I'll have it for dinner today.

I tried to store it in the item box, but it wouldn't go in. It's still alive. Come to think of it, there's not a single hole in the tuna's head.

I slit its neck with my magic sword, stowed it in the item box, re-accelerated toward the gate, and returned to the city. It was quite hard and over five meters long.

I didn't over-accelerate on the way back to ...... and end up going back another kilometer or so, you know?

I've completed 50 laps. 　I've also defeated a demon.

"......?　You started running in the morning, right?　Did you finish already?

Yeah, I think I went a little faster. I think it took me about 2 hours to complete 50 laps.　I don't know. You'll never catch me.

Here's your card.

It's really over. ...... Two hours, seven minutes, nearly a fifth off the fastest time. What the hell did you do?

I didn't do anything illegal. I was never asked to run. I think we should announce this fairly.

"I flew around the track at a height of a little more than two meters. It's faster than running.

How much money did you spend on this?　You don't look that rich. ......

What?　Money?　What are you talking about?

I didn't spend any money. Why?

Didn't you just stuff a bunch of magic tools in your item box?

No, sir.　I just used magic.

I see. So that's how people with low magic power usually maintain their flight. That's tough.

I think about it as if it were someone else's problem. Actually, it's someone else's problem.

"What happened to your magic?

"I have a little bit of magic power, so... I have a lot of item boxes.

I have 7 (a little) more than normal people. But I'm talking about the number of zeroes.

But I'm talking about the number of 0's. "A little ......?　I've never heard of such a thing even among decibatoreans,......, but even for decibatoreans, the time is abnormal.

It's not a problem if you're fast.

I'm not sure what to make of it.　Do I need to take the combat test?

The points are ...... 15,000!　It's not a new record, but it's the level that the C class hunted at full capacity. 　What did you kill?

"What?

It must have been about 1500 when I saw it. You think that's a tenfold increase at once?　...... Oh.

Do they count the ones you kill after you've completed 50 laps?

Yeah, as long as you've been running for less than 20 hours, it counts.

I'm not sure if it's a good idea, but I think it's a good idea.

It's not a normal fish by any stretch of the imagination. ......

It's a good idea to take a look at the website and see if you can find anything that might help you.

I was flying over the ocean when I was attacked by a fish.

I'm not sure if tuna is a proper noun in this world too. Of course, it's because of translation magic.

No, sir. It's probably a little over five meters long. It looks like a tuna.

Are they very hard? Do they have sharp teeth?

Yes, probably.

The boat killer ...... is definitely a 12,000 point monster, but ...... do you have any proof?　If you don't have anything to prove, you've got a point.

Boat killer. I'm not sure if you can sink a boat and make it a nice splashy boat or not.

Either way, there's a way to prove it. The real thing.

Here.

You take out a fresh tuna.

It was heavy, so I tried to hold it down with acceleration magic. I didn't want it to smell fishy, so I held it through the magic armor.

It's a surreal sight to see a person holding a large tuna. Are you going to use it as a weight to move the elevator?　You'd have to freeze the tuna first.

Is it going in the item box? ...... Oh well, who cares now. At any rate, you have passed the test and have been awarded a rank of C for annihilation.

I thought the rank you could get with the card was D.

"Well, there are standards up to C. It's just that there was no one who could run 50 laps in less than 10 hours and earn 10,000 points, so it became an unknown fact.

You see, I'm right in front of you.

I haven't measured the capacity of the item box yet.

Yeah, we'll get to that.

--Later on, as expected, I ran out of weights when measuring the capacity of the item box, so I had no choice but to have the words "over 275,000 kg" engraved on my transporter card.

Incidentally, it is said that this fish has only a hard shell, but the flesh is delicious.

...... A shell for a fish. Where are the scales?