CH 70

—Three minutes before my unscathed victory over Lent.

“Unique skill ‘Tempest’.”

Lent, who smiled fearlessly as he muttered this, quickly brought his sword to the back of his head as if he were handling a golf driver, and held it up.

“Gustav, you will now fall to your knees [.. helplessly]”

“…?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

He says this to me as I tilt my head. He then swung his sword out to the side with a mighty swing. Immediately after that…

─ ─ Buuuuuuuh!

“Ha…?”

A strong gust of wind hit me from right beside me. Suddenly, I couldn’t even stand on my feet, and my body was blown away by the enormous air pressure.

“Wh-what the hell?”

“Don’t be surprised just yet, Gustav!”

Every time Lent moved his sword up and down, right and left, a powerful gust of wind blew from that direction, which did not even allow me to move. I was in mid-air, just being swayed by the wind, unable to do anything.

“Damn it!”

What the hell is this? What kind of skill is this? But in a world that is shaking around in circles, I can neither see nor think properly. Gradually, you lose your sense of direction.

“There!”

GUN! A gust of wind blows me out of the air with a forceful gust of wind. And before I knew it, Lent was in front of me, a sharp sword in his hand.

“??”

Lento was using the wind to pull my body towards him. I barely brought my spear in front of myself and received a blow from Lent’s sword with the hilt of my spear.

I was shaken to the back of my head by a huge impact. A huge shock jolted me to the back of my head. My body was blown backwards in a big way.

“Ugh!”

I barely managed to regain my stance and land on my feet, but my hands were numb and shaky. Lento’s sword strike, which combined the force of the wind with a large swinging attack, was ridiculously powerful.

But what is this highly flexible skill? Is this a unique skill? How on earth does it work… no, more importantly, now I have to make the first move before I get hit by the same attack again!

I use my skill 『Catapult Arms』 and throw a short sword, which I have been carrying at my waist, towards Lento’s dominant arm. However.

“Oops!”

A strong gust of wind erupted from under Lento’s feet, and it was easily flung away.

“Wha…? You prevented it without any movement…?”

“It’s no use, you bastard. Whatever you do, it’s all meaningless before justice!”

It’s not at all clear what Lent’s skills are at all. Whether the one that controls the wind with his sword and the one that spews wind from his feet are two different skills, or whether he is doing it with one ‘unique skill’ – no, let’s not stop and think about it.

That is a lesson learned from experience. It was during the defeat of the Demon King. Because I stopped and thought about unnecessary things during the battle, the Demon King used the princess in a clever way, and I almost died from a terrible counterattack. You should not stop attacking. But it is also foolish to stop thinking.

“All right, then, let’s go!”

Do both at the same time. Think while moving and think while attacking. That is the best move. As long as you don’t know what your opponent’s attack is, it’s dangerous to wait and see what they’ll do.

I ran towards Lent.

“Can’t you see you’re still no match for me! Blow away, you bastard!”

Lent flicked his sword sideways and I immediately stepped backwards. Then the wind blew right in front of me.

“Tsk! You dodged it!”

While I was closing the distance, Lent swung his sword several times.

The sword swung down from above. I dodged to the side. Immediately afterwards, a thunderous wind falls down right next to me.

─ ─ The sword swung to the left, and I accelerated and ran through. A gust of wind passes directly behind me.

─ ─ The sword is swung up. I feel a strange sensation in my sole, and I jump up lightly. Then, as expected, the wind blows up from there, so I do a low backflip to parry the wind and land.

“Kuh! Don’t avoid me, coward!”

That’s because I’m being attacked, so I’m going to avoid it. I’m not going to say it out loud because it would be useless to do so.

In the meantime, I close the distance between me and Lent to the attack range of the spear.

“Hmph──!”

Skill 『Thunder Rage』. I shoot an electrifying blow towards Lent’s dominant arm, which is holding the sword. A blinding light approaches Lent with the sound of sparks, but…

“You can’t hit me!”

Whoosh! And once again, the wind erupts from Lento’s feet with no motion, and the 『Thunder Rage』 is deflected in the other direction.

Seriously. I thought 『Thunder Rage』 was a skill that couldn’t be defended against…

After that, while avoiding Lento’s attacks, I tried to hit him with 『Thunder Rage』 and 『Thousand Spear Birth』, but all of them were blocked by the wall of wind and did not reach Lento.

“Choky..! Enough, give up and give me that head! Bastard!”

Avoiding Lent’s wind attack again, I took some distance away.

What’s going on? It seems that 『Thunder Rage』doesn’t seem to work. One thing I found out is that the Wall of Wind – the wind that comes out of Lent’s feet – seems to be an auto-skill. The attack is repelled even if you take the back, so there is no indication that Lent is consciously generating it.

“Looks like you’re out of hand!”

Saying so, Lent charges towards me in high spirits.

It’s not like I don’t have a hand.

I have powerful Awakening Skills that attack space itself, such as 『Thunderbolt』 and『Mystic Ice』, so I should be able to break through the wind wall if I use them. But I haven’t used those awakening skills against people yet. …They are really powerful and can’t be adjusted, so they can kill the opponent.

I’ll use 『 Thousand Spear Birth』 for the time being to create a triple wall of spears between me and Lent, and keep my distance…

“Hm?”

That’s when I realized something was wrong with my spear.

─ ─ A little below, the point of the spear is shining intensely. That’s where the round flask-like glass ball is attached. If you look closely, you can see what the glow is – it’s an electric shock. It is a snake-like motion inside the glass ball, centered on a copper wire, which is entangled.

“This is…”

Yes, come to think of it, this spear I’m using now is not the [Poseidon Lance] I had until yesterday. The spear I received from the princess just now, I believe its name is [Charged lightning spear (Prototype)], or something like that.

The description says something like, ‘Every time you attack with the lightning attribute, you accumulate lightning energy, and when you press the switch, the power of the next lightning attribute attack increases’….

Observing the handle of the spear, there is indeed something that looks like a button near the handle I hold.

“Well, let’s settle this, you bastard!”

Swoosh! Swoosh! And Lent approaches, slashing through the wall of spears made of 『 Thousand Spear Birth』 one after the other. …Maybe it’s worth a try. I press that hardened button with a snap. Immediately afterwards.

… – Cir-Cir-Cir-Crackle! And the glow in the flask increases even more, and the spear point sparks.

“This is the last of the wall? Gustav, I’ll have your head!”

Lent slashes through the last of the triple wall of spears and leaps high towards me, swinging his sword at me. It’s a big swing, even more swift than before. With the wall of wind, I could clearly see that he was confident that my attack wouldn’t get through anyway.

I aim at such a Lent and unleash my skill.

『Thunder Rage』

Immediately afterwards, a brilliant flash of light enveloped the throne room, as if lightning had really struck.

“Wh????”

It was like a beam of light. The lightning beam easily pierced through the wall of wind that Lent was clad in, snapping the sword in Lento’s hand in, too, and even piercing the ceiling of the throne room behind it.

After a delay, a loud “ZDOOM! A loud noise and shockwave hit our skin.

“… Eh?”

─ Up to that point, it had been exactly three minutes since the start of the battle. I had thus won the battle without any injuries against Lent.

Now, Lent is still sitting in front of me, stunned. He seemed to be unable to close his mouth at the power that far exceeded his expectations.

“Hey, hey, hey…?”

When Lento looked at his hands and saw the sheath at his waist, he finally realized that his sword was nowhere to be found. He is flailing and panicking like an upturned insect.

Hmm, this is an opportunity.

『Thunder Rage』

“Gahh?”

I activate that skill again, and Lent rolls over to even more grunting. …Oh? This time I wasn’t blocked by a wall of wind. Apparently, if you let go of the sword, that wall of wind doesn’t activate. Incidentally, the spear was upside down again, so there shouldn’t be any scratches.

Alright. For the time being, it would be troublesome if it went on a rampage like this. Let’s have him stunned.

I continued to aim at Lent’s lower jaw with 『Thunder Rage』, but.

“Oops, I’ll let you stop there?”

Suddenly, a man with glasses appears in front of Lent. … “Teleportation”, perhaps, as the 『Thunder Rage』 hits the man, it is nullified as if the impact is swallowed up.

“Huh?”

Oi oi oi, what in the world is going on today? How can there be two guys against whom the supposedly indefensible 『Thunder Rage』 doesn’t work? Is this another unique skill?

The man with the glasses looks at me and with a snort.

“It seems you’re stronger than we imagined. I never thought Nanjo would lose.”

“…Thanks a lot. So now, how did you prevent me from attacking you?”

“I’m not like him, I’m very cautious, so I have no comment.”

The man with the glasses says this in a playful manner and teleports away again with Lent to the woman called Hibiki.

“I’ll be leaving today. We’ve accomplished our objective here.”

“Purpose?”

“G, Gustav.”

Before the man in glasses could answer my question, the stunned Lent seemed to come to his senses. A voice filled with simmering emotions echoes into the throne room.

“The Empire [declares war] against the kingdom that unjustly oppresses the hero Ark-dono, with justice and liberation!”

Snorting, Lento points at me.

“Gustav! I will never forgive you, the first of evil! Next time we meet, I will surely cut the evil that is you with the sword of justice!”

When Lent said that much, Lent and the girl called Hibiki gathered around the man with the glasses.

You’re going to escape by ‘teleporting’, aren’t you?

“I won’t let you!”

I still have more questions for these three. I stepped out to stop the ‘teleportation’, but…

But I was caught in the middle. As if to spoil my start, several arrows shot out at me, surrounding my feet.

“Ah!”

I looked in surprise, and before I knew it, Hibiki was standing there with her bow pointed at me. Is this girl also one of the Seven Warriors…? The expression on Hibiki’s face as she looked at me was…

“Eh?”

Unexpectedly, I am taken aback. To such me…

” Remember! Gustav!”

Lent shouts. And then the three of them disappeared through the ‘teleportation’ of the man with the glasses. Lent had been showing extraordinary hostility towards me until the very end, but… right now, more than anything else.

“…Why were you smiling?”

Hibiki’s expression towards me – I couldn’t understand the reason for that happy, excited smile, and I could only tilt my head.