Looking at it another way, it should’ve been fine letting anything but Allucia’s sword hit it. In other words, it could’ve simply ignored Surena, Joshua, and Misty. It’d had enough time to come to that understanding.
However, it was reacting to attacks it should’ve been able to ignore. It was getting hit only where it was okay to get hit. It could be a simple defensive reaction in the spur of the moment, but if it didn’t move like that, it would give itself plenty of opportunities to counterattack. Id Invicius was prioritizing a seemingly meaningless defense.
I had an idea. Now, I just had to double-check. I had no way of verifying this on my own, so there was nothing better than asking a specialist.
“Lucy, you can see the flow of mana, yeah?”
“Hm? Well, yes.”
“Is there anything unnatural about Id Invicius’s flow? Anywhere weird on its body?”
Maybe it was just a coincidence. However, in battle, it was common sense to move with conviction rather than rely on coincidence. If there was the slightest chance of overcoming this, it was only right to exhaust that possibility completely. Otherwise, victory would forever remain out of reach.
“There is,” Lucy answered like it was nothing serious. “Close to the base of the neck...no, closer to the chest? It’s thinner or muddier there... Well, something like that.”
“Thought so! Thanks!”
She’d provided information we swordsmen practically die for ever so easily. I hadn’t actually expected to get such a clear answer. I wanted to praise myself for not shouting, “If you knew that, then why didn’t you say so?!”
I mean, I did get where she was coming from. The flow of mana was probably a perfectly natural sight to wizards, so Lucy hadn’t seen any particular reason to mention it—she’d deemed this information unnecessary in this fight and didn’t see the need to share it with us.
There was an unnatural flow of mana at the base of Id Invicius’s neck and around its chest. I doubted Lucy would make a mistake regarding anything magical. Maybe it was okay for a wizard to ignore such information, but it was worth paying attention to as a swordsman.
I didn’t understand the magical principle behind it. Still, prodding at something that felt out of place was the basic theory behind finding a path to victory. To add to that, my intuition matched the information I’d gotten from Lucy.
Maybe there was something preventing it from concentrating its mana in that one spot—it could be a weak point. This was a trifle to Lucy, who could beat it without worrying about that, but it was different for a swordsman. Striking that spot was well worth trying. If it wasn’t a weak point, I would seriously be out of ideas.
“Surena! Aim for the chest!” I shouted as I rejoined the fray.
“R-Right!”
Judging by the distance and the difference in speed, my attack would come after Surena’s.
“Ooh, now that I think of it, none of you can see mana... And yet, you still noticed. Quite impressive.”
I heard a faint sigh of admiration behind me. It seemed Lucy had really forgotten about that. Well, even without understanding mana, my power of observation in the midst of battle was one of my greatest strengths as a swordsman.
Anyway, things weren’t going to get started until we got a hit in. Leaving this to Allucia would be meaningless. Her weapon was still amplified by Lucy’s magic, so she was able to get a slash in regardless of any weak points. It wouldn’t be much of a reference for me and Surena.
Fortunately, it’d suffered quite a lot of damage to its forelegs. We’d been correct to hamper its mobility to prevent it from running away. Also, it was naturally forced to sacrifice its forelegs to protect its chest. This helped back my theory.
That said, it was actually pretty hard to aim for the chest against a creature that walked on four legs. The face and limbs were much easier targets. In a normal confrontation, it was out of sword’s reach, and there was generally never a reason to explicitly aim there. Against a monster this size, there were openings to pull it off, though. We needed to watch out for stomping and flailing forelegs, but I doubted Surena would commit such a fundamental error.
She ran in a straight line, feinted left and right, then slipped in under its legs. Feints worked surprisingly well against any opponent, not just humans. As long as they weren’t some supernatural being, all creatures generally made decisions based on sight. Even though Id Invicius wielded mana, it was the same as humans in that regard.
“Hmph!”
“Grah!”
Surena followed with an upward slash. It didn’t bounce off like her previous attack.
“It...worked!”
I’d definitely witnessed her blade sinking in, even if only a little.
“Okay!”
It was the difference between zero and one. If the blade worked at all, then the monster wasn’t invincible. It could be defeated. If we kept at it, we could win. In a battle where a single moment could decide life or death, a single ray of hope couldn’t be overlooked. Swordsmen were creatures who clung on to the very end in such struggles to the death.
“Surena!”
“Got it!”
Even though she’d slipped in successfully, it was hard to stay under there for long. The monster was sure to move, and more importantly, it was dangerous. Also, if I wanted to get an attack in as well, there was the simple problem of space.
It felt so pleasant to get all of that across with nothing more than a single word—a name, at that. A casual part of me observed that I really did live for battle. But that was fine. This was surely what I’d wished for during my childhood.
“Haaaaah!”