One hit might even drain enough of my energy to make a turnaround totally impossible.
So I really wanna avoid all of Black’s attacks until I can overwrite the field.
On the flip side, he wants to damage me before that happens and nip my attempted comeback in the bud.
Can I withstand the onslaught, or will Black manage to land enough hits to stop me?
That’s about the shape of things right now.
I’ve got a long haul ahead of me if I want to win, and if I get distracted for even a second, I could lose the whole damn thing.
So Black has the home field advantage, and I can’t even afford to take a single hit—how is that fair, huh?!
No waaay.
How come he gets the upper hand, yet I’m the one starting with a major handicap?
Seriously, no waaay…
I dodge Black’s sword as it swoops toward me.
Then his mouth opens, and a breath attack blasts out.
Don’t use Dragon Breath while you’re in human form!
I mean, I know he can do stuff like that ’cause he’s really a dragon, but still!
And sure, I could do it, too, if I wanted to, but come on!
Using a breath attack in human form just plain looks weird, okay?!
Although it’s certainly effective at catching me by surprise!
And yes, it did hit me, if you must know!
My human upper half gets blown to smithereens just like that.
But I’ve still got my spider lower half, and I can grow back the human half easily.
Yeah, I’ll have to spend some energy to do so, but it’s a tiny amount in the grand scheme of things.
In terms of damage, ’tis but a scratch.
Well…a scratch that destroyed my whole upper body.
The way visible damage doesn’t equate to actual damage is one of the annoying, or at least confusing, parts about a fight between gods.
It makes it hard to tell who’s got the upper hand at a glance.
Take that last attack, for example—we probably both used about the same amount of energy, even though my body is the one that got wrecked by that breath attack.
While I used energy to restore my destroyed upper body, Black used energy to attack in the first place.
In a battle of gods, whoever uses up their energy first loses.
It takes energy both to attack and to defend, so the person who’s on the offensive isn’t necessarily the one who’s winning.
Either way, you’ve got to carefully calculate how much energy each move is going to take.
In my case, it didn’t make a huge difference whether I took a hit from that breath attack or not. So rather than dodging it in a panic, I chose to let the attack hit so I could stay on my toes in case he followed up with an attack from that sword.
And sure enough, here it comes!
I evade Black’s sword slash easily.
Black must have known as well as I did that his breath attack wouldn’t damage me, which clearly meant that he was really after making an opening to attack with his sword, duh!
Ah-ha-ha-haaa!
You’ll have to try harder than that obvious strategy to pull one over on me!
See, I’ve figured something out in our battle so far.
Black isn’t used to fighting!
Sure, he is strong, there’s no arguing that.
His movements are very precise, not unpolished in the least.
But if I had to describe it, I’d say it seems like he’s done a lot of training but not much actual combat.
His fighting style is, I dunno…very clean.
It lacks that rough-and-tumble “I’m-gonna-take-you-down-no-matter-what!” quality.
When you think about it, it makes sense: Black’s been the unrivaled manager of this world for a long time, which means combat is only a distant memory… In fact, did he ever even have a life-or-death battle before the system was created?
Meanwhile, I’ve been fighting to survive from the second I was born. It’s only natural that there’d be a stark difference in our levels of real-world combat experience.
Thanks to that, I’ve managed to make it without taking a single serious hit so far.
That doesn’t mean it’s been easy, though—this situation still totally sucks, obviously!
Black is a super-high-spec fighter, even if he isn’t really used to actually fighting!
His swordsmanship is very by-the-book, and he’s not very good at feints.
So it’s relatively easy to tell what he’s going to do next, but let me tell you, predicting attacks and actually dodging them are two very different things!
This time, it’s another artless overhead swing.
Except for the fact that it’s unbelievably fast.
Only after I dodge the attack does the whooshing sound reach my ears.
If it left a sound behind, that means it must’ve been easily moving faster than the speed of sound, huh…?
His attacks are faster than the eye can follow.
That makes it really hard to dodge, even if he’s easy to read in theory.
If I let my guard down for even a second, I’ll be sliced in two before you can blink.
Dammit!
If only I had my go-to weapon on hand, at the very least…!
I’m pretty sure my giant scythe could hold up to Black’s sword.
It kinda seems to have a mind of its own despite the fact that I created it, and it’s got high enough specs to qualify as a legendary-class weapon, I’d say.
If we went blade-to-blade, I don’t think it would go down that easily.
In fact, if I attacked him with that scythe, I bet I could deal Black some real damage.
And it even has its own energy stores separate from mine.
An external battery pack?
Come on, having that scythe would open up tons of strategic options!
So why don’t I have it, you ask? Because Black is blocking me from summoning the scythe for all he’s worth.
I’m certainly trying my best to get it into my hands, and it seems like the scythe is even trying to teleport here itself, too.
Buuut, Black is apparently very wary of that scythe and the huge amount of energy it clearly holds, and is doing everything in his power to prevent me from summoning it.
Like I said before, interfering with teleportation is easy.
So there’s not much else I can do.
If my opponent was trying to summon an obviously dangerous weapon like that, you can bet I’d be stopping them, too.
Now, if I’d been able to go into this battle fully prepared, of course I would’ve had my scythe, and this would all be waaay easier…
Dammit, it’s all D’s fault!
I know I’ve been complaining about her a lot, but that’s her fault, too!
If I come out of this alive, I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind, I swear!
Otherwise it wouldn’t even be worth it.
That’s only if I survive, though.
For now, I better focus on my present predicament.
If I can buy enough time and survive Black’s onslaught of attacks, I win.
If I go down before then, Black wins.
Honestly, I’m so busy trying to stay alive that I can’t worry about anything else.
So I’m just gonna have to let the Demon Lord and the others handle it.
Which does worry me, of course.
On the rare occasions I’ve ever entrusted things to others, I always keep an eye on them via my clones so that I can intervene if I need to.
But this time, I can’t even do that much.
Which means I’m fully counting on them, and I can’t even try to help.
And of course it’s at the most important stage of the game.
Yeah, I’m worried.
But since we’ve made it this far, I’m just gonna have to put my trust in the Demon Lord and the others.
The Demon Lord has handled all kinds of ordeals, and at this point, so have the likes of Vampy and Mr. Oni.
I’ve gotta have faith that they’ll get through this one, too.
Besides, we’re, like, uh…you know. F-fr-friends! Or whatever!
Aaaargh! God, trusting and depending on others is, like, sooo embarrassing!
What the hell?! Whose idea was this?!
I feel crazy awkward about it, but my thoughts on the matter don’t change the fact that I just have to leave it to them, regardless.
It’s not so much that I’m trusting them as that I have no other choice…
If anything happens to the Demon Lord or any of the others, I can’t come running to help.
…Dammit, I’m worried!
The tide will turn in my favor if I buy enough time?
I don’t have time to be so blasé about it.
Gotta give it all I’ve got and put an end to this battle ASAP!
Not that I haven’t been giving it all I’ve got this whole time already!
That means I’ll just have to surpass my limits!
Unleash your full power, me! Yeahhhh!
I make a move forward, and Black’s sword grazes my face.
Yeahhhh…
Um, turns out randomly attacking is still a bad plan!
I can’t lose my head just ’cause I’m worried about the Demon Lord and company.
This isn’t the kind of opponent I can defeat in a panic, after all.
Play it cool, girl.
I’m already fighting to the best of my ability, so if I try to push myself past my limits, I’m just gonna end up making a mistake and leaving myself open to attack.
The shortest route to success is to keep calm and carry on.
As much as I’m worried about the others, I’ve gotta put them out of my mind for now.
The Demon Lord and all the rest will be fine.
That’s all part of putting your trust in someone, I think.
And I bet the Demon Lord and the others are putting their trust in me, too.
So I’ve gotta make sure I don’t let them down.
My opponent is Black, an administrator who’s protected this world for ages.
Not to mention that he’s got most of mankind backing him up.
I couldn’t ask for a better foe!
Now I’ve just gotta win this thing, and live up to the trust of my…those guys!
…Even if all I’m doing right now is running around dodging things!
My fervor thus renewed, I dodge Black’s next sword slash with a magnificent backstep.