“What?! That was too far?!”
“Oh, did I forget to tell you? The bad guys have high physical strength, but I’ve set it so they’re real squishy in contrast. If you don’t control your strength, they’ll drop dead super easily, so better watch out.”
“You could’ve told us sooner!” Linne howled up at the announcement. Even if the villains hadn’t been set to be so squishy, if a regular person had taken that kick, they would have definitely broken some bones. Breaking bones was a bit far for simple disruption of business, no? Or...maybe not? For the shopkeeper, their business was a matter of life and death, so...
“Since you eliminated that bad guy, that’s minus points for you, Linne. Oh, and since you ruined the vegetables too, that’s another slight deduction.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” Linne exclaimed, then immediately bent down to start picking up the vegetables and return them to their boxes. Some were so bruised that there was no way they would sell anymore.
Definitely worth a point reduction. It’s not good to cause a hassle for the townspeople.
Though the point reduction likely wasn’t by very much.
“Oh, Linne...” Linze quietly sighed. One of Linne’s problems was her lack of consideration for the small stuff, but if she was made to consider her actions, I was sure she would improve with time. Maybe.
“Nooo, you can’t just send them flying like that, Steph!”
I looked over in Sue’s direction and saw Steph in her yellow magical girl outfit, tackling a bad guy into the distance. He went so far that he collided with the far wall, disappearing into light at the impact.
Man, over here too? Our kids are so bad at holding back...
“Yes! Good going, Elna!”
On the other hand, Elze’s daughter was the first to successfully capture a villain. She had immobilized them with [Icebind] and then simply tapped them with her staff to deploy the light ring.
Elna got the first point, huh?
On the neighboring screen, Quun was confronting a villain, not with her staff but with a weirdly shaped gun.
“Capture!”
“Nyee?!”
A throwing net blasted out of the gun toward the bad guy. It landed right on top of them, sealing their movement, allowing Quun to walk up and tap them with her staff to capture them.
“Heh, that makes one point for me!”
“Should that count...?” Leen questioned, tilting her head.
“Hmm... I feel like it’s moving away from the idea of learning restraint, but she did apprehend the criminal properly, so maybe...” Quun wasn’t learning to hold back her own strength like this, she was entirely relying on her weapons. Though there was no denying that anyone could apprehend criminals with ease using that gun. For now...I’d accept it. I mean, she wasn’t cheating or anything.
“Oh.”
I suddenly heard Yakumo and Frei’s voices in unison from a different screen. Yae and Hilde were standing in front of it, the latter with her face in her hands, the former looking up to the sky in despair.
“She is putting too much strength in, she is...”
“She doesn’t need to thrust so hard that she sends the enemy flying...”
Apparently, Yakumo and Frei had misjudged their strength entirely. Of course, that was enough to defeat them, deducting points from their total. I was kind of surprised. Both of the girls would often spar with the knights, so I had assumed they knew how to hold back their strength.
Actually, was their training with the knights the kind where you stopped right before you hit them? In that case, I guess it made sense that they never really learned how to control their strength from there.
The girls ended up annihilating many of the bad guys after that, but they gradually got the hang of it, finally learning how to reduce their strength to a level where they merely knocked the enemy unconscious.
“Arcia’s really managing to take down bad guy after bad guy compared to the rest.”
“That’s because control in cooking is essential, after all,” Lu proudly stated. “From controlling the heat to controlling the level of spices, this is nothing new for her.”
Could those really be called the same thing? Did she mean because you had to toe the line for both? I wasn’t sure...
“Grand Duke, would Yoshino lose points in this case too?” Sakura asked as she watched her daughter take out her keyboard and begin playing a lullaby.
“Hm? Ahhh... Yeah, probably a bit.”
Due to Yoshino’s performance magic, the bad guys fell asleep right on the spot, allowing her to capture them with ease. There was nothing wrong with that. The problem was that she had put the other townspeople to sleep in the process. That would come under disrupting the people. But it was difficult for anyone to capture large numbers of criminals without accidentally causing a bit of a commotion, so I couldn’t see her getting too many points deducted.
“Leylle, he went over there!”
“Y-Yeah! Prisma Wall!”
“Nyee?!”
The bad guy running in front of Leylle suddenly bumped into something and fell. When I looked closer, I noticed that there was a transparent wall. Was it a crystal wall? He must have slammed right into it. Allis caught up and used her staff to apprehend them.
Nice, they caught them without any minus points.
“We did it, Leylle!”
“I’m so glad...”
The girls cheerfully gave each other a high five. They really were like sisters.
“I’m glad it looks like they’re having fun.”
“They’re both so cute. I’ve gotta record this.”
“Yeah. We should preserve it forever!”
Melle, Lycee, and Ney were all overjoyed at their achievement. Even Ende was recording the screen with his phone. I already told him I’d give him the edited footage later, though...
“Everyone seems to be getting used to it now. They’re capturing the bad guys much easier than when they started,” Yumina commented as she watched the screens.
Even Yakumo and Frei, who had been completely unable to control their power before, succeeded in knocking them unconscious at least half of the time. Linne seemed to be learning as well. Quun, Arcia, and Elna were all safely taking them down as they had been, and Yoshino... Well, she was still accidentally getting the townspeople wrapped up in her performance magic...
With Allis and Leylle still successfully taking the bad guys down, that left only one problem child.
“Grrrrrr, why did they disappear again?!”
“Steph...”
Steph pulled out yet another [Prison] tackle and annihilated another bad guy. Sue remained worried as she watched her daughter.
A tackle would be pretty hard to control the strength of.
Steph was light, so if she didn’t add some force with [Accel], she couldn’t quite make her tackle strong enough to do anything significant.
Kuon, who was currently standing beside Sue, called out to Steph.