Chapter 200: Vs Colbert — After

Chapter 200: Vs Colbert — After

We checked in on Colbert, who’d been carried over to the sickbay, not too long after the match ended. His wounds had been healed by magic, but he’d yet to regain most of his stamina, and so, he was still bedridden and unable to so much as sit up.

「Colbert, feeling okay?」

「Hey... It appears that I’ve narrowly managed to escape death.」

「Very close.」

「Hahah. You have me beat. I never expected to lose even after undoing my sea...ugh.」

Colbert placed a hand on his head and groaned.

「Okay?」

「Yeah... It seems that I’ve simply pushed myself a bit too hard. This happens every time I use Asura.」

Asura was the technique that caused him to suddenly sprout a bunch of magical arms. My assumption was that said technique boosted both his reaction speed and widened his field of vision, as I failed to see how else he would’ve been able to fight on par with Fran and her Sword Lord Arts.

「You were strong, stronger than any foe I’ve ever faced before.」Rread latest chapters at novelhall.com

「Thanks.」

「Your next opponent will be a tough one, but I believe in you. Beat him, for my sake as well.」

「Definitely.」

We decided to leave the sick bay after exchanging a few more words with him. As he’d yet to recover, I figured that forcing him into an extended conversation probably wasn’t exactly what anyone could call a good idea.

I expected that he’d end up getting some peace and quiet after we left, but apparently the exact opposite happened, as I happened to catch ear of a few panicked shouts just before we wound up out of earshot.

「God damn it! I went overboard and let the blood rush to my head! Damn it! I’m totally going to get excommunicated! There’s no way my demon of a Master will let me get away with this!」

His tone made it incredibly easy for me to picture him cradling his head and shaking it in despair. It would’ve been something interesting to discuss with Fran, but I decided to practice tact and keep any mention of his circumstances to a minimum seeing as how he’d purposefully waited for her to leave before letting his emotions take control of him; he clearly hadn’t wanted to show his more pitiful side.

『My condolences, Colbert. My condolences.』

「Nn?」

『Nah, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about. Let’s just go.』

***

The next thing Fran and I did was head back to the arena. Specifically, we became spectators, as it was probably the best possible use of our time. There was a chance we would end up having to fight the people that emerged victorious today should we win the next round. It’s not like we’d be wasting time even if we lost either, as observing these higher leveled fights served to broaden our horizons regardless.

There were only a total of eight matches scheduled today due to the nature of the single elimination tournament structure, and as we fought the second, there were only six for us to observe.

Amanda was the one fighting the day’s third match, and had just finished wrapping up right as we managed to get back. She had once again basically finished her foe off in an instant.

「Didn’t get to see anything.」

『Eh, can’t really be helped. This next match should be interesting enough to make up for it though. Erza’s going to be fighting.』

His opponent was a C ranked adventurer, one known to be rather difficult to fight because of his incredible technical skill with the spear. The battle was honestly one I was really looking forward to and didn’t want to miss.

However, we were at a bit of an impasse. There wasn’t anywhere for us to sit. We contemplated what to do, and I actually almost ended up creating a chair using earth magic, but, fortunately, one of the men nearby called out to us and, in doing so, stopped me before I did.

「Hey, are you Fran? The Magic Sword Girl?」

「Nn?」

Neither Royce, nor Fermus ended up having to go all out, but they both finished their matches in less than a minute. All I could tell from watching them was that they had even more power hiding beneath the surface.

『We’ll have to win tomorrow’s match if we even want a chance at fighting any of them.』

「Will definitely win.」

***

We headed to the dungeon after we finished spectating the day’s matches so we could not only try out our new skills, but also run a few simulations in order to figure out how we’d go about fighting Goldalfa.

Fortunately, Physical Damage Invalidation didn’t actually activate whenever we took a step, but it did consume an incredible amount of mana nonetheless. It’d react regardless of whether we were attacking or defending; half of my mana pool had actually vanished into thin air before I’d even realized any of it was missing.

But, as evidenced by its ability to even nullify the shock generated by our attacks, it was ridiculously potent. Fran was able to punch an ogre many times her size without even feeling the slightest bit of backlash. In a real battle, the skill made it so we were able to ignore any and all of the attacks our opponents used to zone us. It didn’t matter whether they slashed at us with swords or whacked us with hammers. None of it had any effect whatsoever.

Likewise, Perfect Barrier also turned out to be pretty useful.

It only consumed as much magical energy as either one of the two barriers that’d merged to create it, but had the full effects of both. The potency of its defenses did still fall short of our newly found nullification skill, but that was to be expected.

In other words, we were pretty much going to end up spamming Perfect Barrier whenever we could, and saving Physical Damage Nullification for when we really needed it.

『Alright, that’s enough testing. Let’s try figuring out what we should do against Goldalfa.』

The fact that Goldalfa was an axe user made me suspect that we would probably end up having to rely on Physical Damage Nullification if we wanted to beat him. I had no idea exactly how strong he’d get if he used Awakening, but I somehow doubted our defenses would be solid enough to hold off his attacks.

His offenses were but one of my two main concerns. The other was the extent to which he was capable of soaking up damage. The dude had High Speed Regeneration, Strengthened Skin, and over 1k HP to boot. We probably wouldn’t be able to beat him by slowly wearing him down; I didn’t think we’d be able to beat him in a more drawn out battle.

In other words, if we wanted to beat him without using Physical Damage Nullification, we’d have to not only dodge all his attacks, but also deliver attacks with enough power to break through his defenses and quickly end the match. My conclusion? Things weren’t exactly looking up.

We spent a bit of time thinking up hypothetical situations and the skills we’d level to deal with each of them before finally calling it a day.

「Will go visit Rumina.」

Fran had already stopped addressing Rumina in the respectful manner that she’d done when they first met — not that the older Black Catkin minded it at all. In fact, she even seemed to enjoy being referred to more casually. The two’s relationship almost seemed to have developed into one that was kind of like that of a grandmother and grandchild, a status quo with which both were satisfied.

『Good idea. We might as well go pop in and say hi before we leave.』

「Nn.」

We teleported into the room Rumina had made us a few days earlier.

She seemed to immediately pick up on our arrival, as she even ended up greeting us by the door as we entered her quarters.

「Welcome.」

「Nn.」

『’Sup.』

「It appears that you have triumphed once again. I believe your next match will be a quarter final round against an A ranked adventurer?」

『Yeap. We’ll be fighting one of the Beast Lord’s subordinates.』

「And will you be attempting victory? I believe you have already satisfied the conditions he has laid before you by winning this morning’s match.」

「Will win. Will force Black Cat Tribe’s strength to be acknowledged.」

『We’re intending on playing every single card we have if that’s what it takes.』

「I see... Very well, I shall say no more regarding the matter. Instead, I will offer you my encouragement. Forward, Fran, to victory!」

「Nn!」

And so, we headed back to the inn after having Rumina tell us a bit more about skills and magic.

Tomorrow, our match would be the first. We had to get up even earlier than usual.