CH 42.1

I’m facing off against Irene. The fact that Irene is my first PVP opponent gives me complicated feelings. Of course, I have no intention to hurt Irene, and I have hardly any spells capable of injuring her in the first place. I have to somehow make her put away her sword or otherwise incapacitate her. The only spells I have on hand that can capture her without injury are Chain Bind, the spell I used earlier which causes Paralysis, and Sleep Cloud, which inflicts sleep. However, surprise attacks like the one from earlier aside, Irene will surely be on guard.

“Sleep Cloud!”

I activate the spell, but the moment the mist appears, Irene leaps away to avoid it. I expected this, so I’m not disappointed, but it makes me realize once more what a difficult situation this is.

Even if there are spells in Another World with extremely high accuracy rates, there are no attack spells that are guaranteed to hit. The same is true for status ailment spells. Chain Bind, which binds your opponent with magic chains, is also the type of spell that simply binds the opponent that’s within the target area, so if they move away from that area, they won’t get caught. PVP battles against opponents who know your skills are troublesome. I’ll probably need to either catch her off guard or use a technique like carefully guiding her into the area where I’m activating my spell.

Fighting Irene in PVP is a really bad matchup for me. The first reason is the level difference. The difference between a Rank 2 class Berserker and a Rank 1 class Magician is large, but there’s also a big difference in stats once you get past level 20. Even if the people in this world aren’t aware of stats and have no control over them, Irene did in fact become significantly stronger after leveling up, so I can’t disregard that difference.

The second reason is the difference in classes. Magicians, who deal high damage and have paper-thin defense, are good against multiple opponents, but are a bad match for agility-type Warrior opponents. The Magician’s high damage spells which are its selling point won’t hit if the opponent is too agile. Irene is a high-speed agility-type Berserker. She’s the type to dodge attacks and rush in on her opponent.

Thirdly, this is a self-imposed restriction, but I can’t use area spells. When a Magician is fighting an agility-type Warrior like this, the basic approach would be to use wide-area attack spells to prevent the Warrior from approaching. However, I have hardly any attack spells now, so I can’t use a strategy like that.

And in addition to these reasons, I also have the restriction of incapacitating without killing her. I’d never be able to beat her one-on-one fighting her head-on.

But it’s not entirely hopeless. I have an advantage as well. This isn’t one-on-one, it’s a group battle with her against all of us.

“You shouldn’t focus too much on Chaos!”

Havoc attacks Irene after she escapes the mist. Along with Havoc attacking her from the front, Irene also has the mist at her back. No matter how agile Irene is, she can’t dodge with no space to dodge to. The mist hasn’t disappeared yet, so if she steps back, she’ll be put to sleep. Irene, not wanting to fight there, flees to the left.

“I’ve been waiting for this!”

Liam jumps out from behind Havoc as if following his lead and swipes at her with the back of his sword.

“Ha!”

“Wha?! That’s impossible!” Liam says in surprise when Irene effortlessly jumps over his head like an acrobat.

After jumping over Liam, Irene comes running straight towards me. She’s fast.

Her knee slams into my face. My HP drops, but all in all, it’s relatively low. Irene is about to continue attacking, but for some reason, she suddenly backs up super fast.

“Argh, that technique is such a pain!”

An arrow passes by before my eyes. It’s Cornelia’s arrow. It seems like Irene stopped her attack because she noticed that.

“It looks like the time it takes until she’s able to use that technique again is shorter than expected. In that case, it seems that we won’t be able to corner her unless we attack constantly,” Emilia says.

“Tch, there’s not enough of us to be able to attack nonstop,” Havoc says.

That technique…? Oh, I see. Havoc and the others don’t know about that skill.

“That’s Blitz Rush.”

“‘Blitz Rush’?”

“It’s a charge ski– technique where she concentrates mana to her feet, giving her explosive propulsion to move at high speeds. Though, it was originally a technique for closing in on your opponent to attack them… Irene, you’re finally able to use it, huh.”

“Yes. While you were gone, I finally mastered it after much training.”

When I was in a party with Irene, she wasn’t fast enough to use Blitz Rush. Since she was in a party with us, she didn’t have many opportunities to use that skill, so she didn’t need it, but I remember that as Alexia learned new spells, Irene got frustrated that she couldn’t use it.

She must have practiced it a lot. I really want to be happy for her, but now that she’s facing me and leading us around by the nose like this, it’s frustrating that I can’t honestly be happy about it.

“I see, then it seems that Liam’s judgment wasn’t wrong. She can’t use this technique in succession, right? And the reason she’s using it to run away rather than attack is because she’s cautious of Nel timing her attacks for the opening after she uses it. Does it have any other weaknesses?” Emilia asks.

“She basically can only move in straight lines, so if you can predict where she’s moving to, you can aim for that. But…”

Honestly, I can’t do that. It might be possible if I had high enough insight to predict her actions just before she moves or if I had good kinetic vision, but Irene’s so fast that it’s hard to estimate.

“Just as Chaos says, she could also do a feint right before she moves. It won’t be easy to pinpoint her movements,” Liam says.

“So it’ll also be difficult to aim for that spot to shoot at it. Aiming requires concentration, after all. Arrows also have their limits,” Cornelia adds.

…Level isn’t the only indicator of strength, huh. I didn’t think of feints at all. It seems like they all realized that.

“In any case, if we don’t do something about her Blitz Rush, it’ll only get worse for us. What do we do?” Cornelia cuts in before I can deny it.

‘What do we do about Blitz Rush,’ huh?

There is a way. There is one, but I can’t use it unless I can get extremely close to Irene. And even if I somehow manage that, I can’t incapacitate her.

Getting close to her… I’d have a way higher chance of hitting zero HP. And since I don’t feel pain, I might die before I even realize it.

I take a deep breath.

“I’ll deal with Blitz Rush. So you guys concentrate on incapacitating Irene.”

“…You have some sort of plan, huh. Alright, leave it to us. We’ll take care of it one way or another,” Havoc says.

“Should we really be making dramatic declarations like that?” Liam asks.

“Well, just leave it to us. We’ve got one more ace up our sleeve. But it’ll take time. Buy some time for us!” Havoc says.

“Are you done with your discussion? This time, I’ll make the first move!” Irene says, readying her rapier and moves to attack.

Liam repels Irene’s attack. Their swords clash in an intense exchange of blows. It may be too difficult for Liam to deal with Irene’s attack by himself, as sweat is dripping down his forehead and his lacerations are increasing. Gradually, Irene forces him back.

Then, Havoc joins in. Having defeated Liam, Irene calmly deals with Havoc, dodging his attack and sending him flying with a kick. I’m sure everything up to this point was foreseeable to Irene.

“Chaos charged in?!”

Hiding behind Havoc’s large frame, I stealthily approached Irene. For Magicians who excel at long-distance combat, it’s normal to fight from a distance. Irene seems shocked that I would approach her myself.

I jump directly in front of Irene. Now that I’m this close, she’ll be within my spell’s range. Blitz Rush’s cooldown time hasn’t elapsed yet.

“Skill Sealing!”

I cast a spell at Irene that I’ve never shown her before. Irene wouldn’t know how to react to an unfamiliar spell. Irene puts up her guard, crossing her arms in front of her to endure it.

The geometric patterns that appear during casting time float around me and form a string that binds Irene. However, once it coils around her, it soon disappears.

“What was… Did it misfire?”

“Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t.”

Nothing noticeably strange happened to Irene. This spell doesn’t have any outwardly noticeable effects, so she probably can’t understand it right away. It’s my first time casting it, so I’m also worried about whether it succeeded, but I act confident so that she doesn’t notice that.

“Hmph, it doesn’t matter either way. Chaos, you’re standing right within my reach.”

I’m fully aware of that. That’s why I need to cast my next spell.

“Now, sleep for a while!” Irene approaches with a punching motion.

“Spider Net!”

“Stop, get back here!”

To buy even the slightest bit more time, I decrease Irene’s movement speed. I shamelessly turn and run away, but Irene chases after me regardless.

“Chaos, get down!”

Cornelia shoots an arrow. I get down, but since she announced it, Irene notices it as well.

“Blitz Rush! …It’s not activating?!” Irene panics when Blitz Rush doesn’t activate. Cornelia’s arrow sends Irene’s rapier flying.

Irene holds her arm from the impact and glares at me.

“The reason I can’t use Blitz Rush is because of your spell, isn’t it?!”

That’s exactly right. Skill Sealing is a spell that inflicts the status ailment Seal which makes the target unable to use their skills for a fixed period of time. Its small range is a huge restriction, but greatly restricting their attacks by rendering all their skills unusable makes it a troublesome status ailment spell when used in PVP. There’s hardly any opportunity to use it against monsters, so I never acquired it until now, which should mean that Irene has never seen it before.

“But as time passes, this spell’s effect will run out. Using that time to retrieve my sword would be a simple task.”

“Hmph, I wonder about that. This spell that seals techniques that use mana has a long-lasting effect. The effect may run out in one minute, or it may be five minutes. Do you think everyone around you will just stand by and watch until then?”