Chapter 97: Trying harder

-Vilde-

The young dark queen seems to have fallen on her rear-end once again. At first glance, it looks as if there's nothing she can do to defend herself as I rush at her, she's using both of her hands to support herself and no mana is being gathered in them, it should not be possible to cast a spell in time. However, a skilled mage can use magic with more than her hands, and the way that she's twisting her leg is rather peculiar.

She's clearly attempting to bait me, she even went as far as to allow me to injure her, an option only available to healers of her caliber. But I'm afraid that her ploy is far too obvious, and so, I avoid sinking Helen too far into her body and prepare to deflect her magic.

'Shadow chain'

The spell emerges from her foot. In this short time, she's already deduced that non-damaging spells are more difficult for me to foresee and is trying to use that to her advantage.

Unfortunately for her, mages casting from their feet is not anything new to me. And now that she's truly defenseless, I prepare to cast another mana-consuming flame. Only to be interrupted by a sudden feeling of danger.

'Shadow chain'

She had yet another spell ready I didn't notice, this one emerging from the tips of her hair. Now, that IS something new to me, it's not quite as powerful as her usual magic but it does manage to catch me by surprise. I can only barely avoid it by using a mana push like she did before and then rolling a bit on the ground. Not a very elegant dodge.

"Not bad, not bad at all. But you should still be capable of much more."

At least, compared to the absolute disaster from before, the way she's fighting now is like night and day.

I always knew that the one to finally reach the bottom of these caverns would not be a normal person by any means. And yet my expectations still fell short.

When this beautiful young lady first opened the door of my room I thought for certain that she was using her strongest intimidation skill on me. I still find it hard to believe that the aura of terror that surrounds her is entirely unintentional. That cold and dark exterior of hers that allows her to make even veteran warriors fall on their knees with a mere glance is nothing more than a facade.

And yet, the meek personality beneath her cold exterior is not all there is to her either. In this battle, we are beginning to uncover what lied dormant in the deepest parts of her mind, and that is, the hearth of a winner.

'Never give up until the end.' A common principle that every warrior takes for granted but almost none can live up to. I have seen it many times, when someone feels that defeat draws near, they start to fall apart. When things get difficult, they begin to think less and less about how to win, their thoughts focusing instead on how much they wish for it all to end. Eventually, they convince themselves that victory is impossible and stop trying to win at all. I've seen this happen even when people's lives were on the line.

The best that ordinary people such as myself can do is to use any willpower we have to endure that pressure. But there's a very small number of people who are the opposite, people who not only have no problem resisting but instead thrive under pressure, who always respond to hardships by trying even harder, the natural winners.

I believe that those traits are related to the dark element. If only we had someone like that we might have been able to defeat the titans back then, but dwelling on the regrets of my past will do nothing to improve the present.

This girl is, without a doubt, one of those natural winners. She most likely enjoyed the many challenges she encountered while studying difficult spells, to the point that they might not have felt like challenges at all. But when it comes to fighting, she only encountered easy battles and became spoiled as a result.

I'm glad that I was able to provide the challenge she needed, just during this fight she has improved immensely. As I keep making things more difficult for her, she continues to reveal more of her true skills, I wonder if she's even aware that I've been progressively increasing the speed of my attacks.

That said, the pressure that she's sending my way now that she's seriously trying to fight me is beyond anything I've ever felt before. I've faced stronger opponents that, unlike her, were certainly trying to kill me, yet none of them were nearly as intimidating as this dark queen. In particular, the moment she gathered her determination to do her best against me was quite terrifying. I was caught off-guard, but fortunately, I was able to just barely retain my composure... Had my fear appeared on my face, it would have damaged my image.

I do wonder where that fear even comes from in the first place? Normally one would need to at least have some ill-intent to be able to produce a substantial level of intimidation, but this girl does not seem to have even an ounce of malice in her.

Truly, I could not have asked for anyone better to entrust this world to after my apparently imminent death. As the civilizations of this world continue to develop over the course of time, the average level of each individual will increase as well, that's why I always expected someone to eventually reach the so-called 'gods'. But that would still require quite the extraordinary individual, not leaving much room for choice, so I'm glad that the first person to reach me was such an outstanding young girl.

There's only one small complaint I have...

"Ah! That pitchfork is deflecting all of my spells..."

She said it again! Does she not realize how rude she's being?

"That's why HELEN has been my companion in more battles than I can remember."

She doesn't seem to have gotten the hint. Is using a weapon's name no longer part of common courtesy in this era? Or is she simply unfamiliar with the common sense of a warrior?

Well, I suppose I will ignore this one impoliteness and focus on the fight. I want to see just how high the queen of darkness can reach.

-Luna-

I got close a few times, but I'm still not able to land a hit on him... He's faster, stronger, and more experienced than me. And I'm convinced that he's not even using his full power yet, he's probably planning to keep the fight at a level where I'm capable of landing that one hit on him. Am I really going to lose a fight that my opponent wants me to win?

No, that cannot be, I'm still not doing my best.

The only thing that gives me an advantage over him is my healing, it lets me attack him without fear of being hurt. Actually... There's one more thing I have, I have the spells that were created by the many mages that lived while Vilde was locked in that room. Many of the spells I've been using seemed to be completely new to him, but when all is said and done, if all a spell does is come out from my hand and fly at him, he can just use that pitchfork to defend himself regardless of what the spell actually does. If I really want to get him I'll need something a bit more unique...

So that's what I was still doing wrong, I know so many spells and yet I keep using the same obvious ones again and again. I need something that he cannot possibly be expecting, I need THAT spell... But first I have to set things up.

'Swamp terrain'

"This again?"

Once again he jumps in the air to avoid being trapped and prepares to stab me as he lands. This time I can also feel him prepare to use a mana push to change direction in midair if necessary, but he won't need to do that.

'Shadow lance'

I make the lance curve so that it comes from the left and he deflects it without a problem. He can probably tell that I'm preparing another spell in my left hand, and with the dexterity that he's already shown many times, he shifts his pitchfork to stab at it as he falls, exactly what I wanted. I knew that he had trouble predicting spells that do no damage.

'Black gate'

The difficult part of that spell was creating gates at a distance. As long as I can touch both of them, I can do it in just one second. But that's still long enough for him to react, so I needed to do it when it was no longer possible for him to stop himself, when he was attacking while falling. And so, the pitchfork goes into the gate in my left hand and out of the gate in my right hand, stabbing into his leg.

"Ah!"

It seems like he got surprised and ended up falling on top of me. He gets up immediately to look at his leg, at a small scratch that is bleeding slightly.

"You are incredible! What was that spell."

"Oh, I didn't create that spell. I learned it just the other day actually..."

"But the way you used it was simply marvelous! It seems like you managed to win this challenge after all."

He says that I won but... Uh, I cannot believe what I'm about to say.

"No, I don't feel like I won anything. You were taking it easy on me, weren't you?"

"That's correct. After all, I did need you to win so that I could tell you what you need to know."

"Even then, I'm still not satisfied. I want you to show me your best. I want to see how far I can really go. I want to prove that I can hit you even when you are fighting seriously."

Vilde raises an eyebrow after hearing that.

"Is this really the same girl from before who didn't want any fight at all? After all you had to struggle to land that one hit. Are you really asking for an even tougher fight?"

"I cannot believe it myself, but yes. That's what I'm asking."

"Hahaha! Very well! But do remember that you literally asked for this."

'Sunfire cloak'

Vilde's body starts to glow a bright orange and emits an unbelievable amount of heat. Just from being in from of him, I can feel that my skin is starting to burn.

'Heat void'

To think that I have to use the same magic that allowed me to bathe in lava just to resist the heat of that spell...

No, that is not a spell, it's a skill. And the heat is just a secondary effect. My 'battle strategist' skill is telling me that all of Vilde's stats have greatly increased just now.

'Bullet hell'

"That again? I already figured out how to deal with-"

Oh, this time is different. Before there were hundreds of those flames, this time there are thousands, and they are moving twice as fast.

I do my best to dodge and block as many as I can, but I cannot deal with all of them. Still, as long as I keep my focus I should be able to keep the loss of mana to a min-

"Ugh!"

Without waiting for his spell to end, moving too fast for me to react, Vilde rushes to me and pins me to the ground with his pitchfork. And so, I cannot defend myself from the rest of the flames.

This is bad... I still had half of my mana left before that attack and now I have less than a third.

"It could be said that speed is the greatest advantage of the fire element. Do you still wish to continue? This does not appear to be possible with your current fighting skills."

He's right, the way I'm now, it seems impossible for me to land even one hit on him when he fights like that. He moved way too fast just now...

And yet, for some reason, that thought is making me smile. And when that smile appears on my face, I see Vilde take half a step back. If I didn't know any better, I would think that he got scared for a brief moment.

"Then I guess I'll have to try even harder."

forli

I'll write the next chapter faster!