“I’ll end this in a heartbeat!” Breaking their intense stare down, Sharon put a leg forward and jumped at Al. “Aaaaaaah!”
She closed the distance between them in an instant and mercilessly swung her sword at him.
“So fast! Hey, Sharon, are you trying to kill me!?”
Sparks scattered through the air as Al hurriedly blocked Sharon’s swing with his scythe.
“You asked me to go all-out, didn’t you!? So I’ll go all-out!”
He’d simply wanted to go with a turn of phrase often used in similar situations; he didn’t actually think Sharon would take him up on it. But without any consideration for his feelings, her blade once again approached him, drawing a beautiful arc in the air.
“Wah! Eep!” Al held onto his scythe as though his life depended on it and screamed like a little girl.
Clink! Pzzzzzt...
After successfully blocking the attack, Al’s scythe flew out of his hand and slid along the ground with an unpleasant, mocking sound, as if it were laughing at its own wielder. Sharon looked at him boorishly, almost disappointed.
“Al, how many times have I told you to get a good grip on your weapon!?”
He remembered that advice very clearly. Acting like a bad student who’d let down their master, he averted his gaze.
“Gotcha!” He reached for the daggers at his sides, enhanced with Sure Hit, and threw three of them at Sharon. He figured his surprise attack would give him enough time to pick up his scythe.
“Kyah!”
Hearing Sharon’s pained scream, Al swung his head around to see her crouching down while covering her face with her hands.
“Ah! Are you okay!?”
Forgetting about the duel, Al threw all his plans out the window and rushed to Sharon. She immediately looked up, revealing her beautiful, spotless face, but Al didn’t have the luxury of relief.
“Al... What are you doing, falling for the simplest trick in the book!? We’re fighting, if you hadn’t noticed!”
He fell for her trick hook, line, and sinker. It was in his nature to help those in need, so he completely dropped his defense as he approached Sharon. His only option was to brace for her brutal counterattack.
“But, since you rushed to help me so quickly, I’ll forgive you just this once!” She flicked his forehead, which was more painful than expected, and bashfully looked away.
“O-Oh, okay.” Al could only babble when he saw how embarrassed she’d gotten.
“Oh my, he’s having an awful lot of fun during this historic battle.”
“A meaningless farce.”
“Right? Even their training sessions felt more serious than this.”
Al had a couple of things to say to those backseat fighters, but he chose to focus on the duel.
“A-Anyway! Prepare yourself; we’re starting over!” Sharon heard the comments as well, but unlike Al, she couldn’t let them slide. She shrugged off her previous bashfulness and faced him with a fire in her eyes. “Don’t fumble around anymore! Fight like you mean it!”
The battle restarted with a powerful strike from Sharon.
Claaang!
This time, Al managed to block her blow.
“Good! See, you can do it if you try! Now then...”
He successfully blocked her follow-up attacks as well. Sharon was clearly holding back, but the force that traveled down his scythe with each attack reverberated through his bones, nearly making him drop his weapon.
“Good, let’s get this ball rolling!”
Sharon powered herself up even more. Ignoring the pain in his arms, Al clutched his scythe.
“What are you playing around for, Sharon!? Win this stupid duel already!”
“Kyah!”
Ranbolg’s angry shout was followed by a feminine scream.
“Airi!”
“Sharon! Dispose of King Alnoa at once! If you don’t...”
Ranbolg held a knife to Airi’s chest. His actions seemed to be on the lubricious side, only enhanced by the girl’s racy expression.
“Ya damn perv! Git that knoife—”
“Silence!”
Al’s instinct about the depravity of Ranbolg’s threat seemed to be on the mark, but what was even more surprising to him was the scream that had come from the athletic, powerful-looking girl’s mouth.
She looked forward wordlessly, giving Al the impression that the girl being held hostage had a similar past to Sharon’s. He glanced at her for confirmation but got nothing of the sort.
“Sorry, Al. I’m going all out,” she whispered before launching a lightning-fast attack.
“Agh! Grahhh!”
She wasn’t kidding. Her sword collided with his scythe, yet it sent him flying all the way into the group of onlooking soldiers.
“Are you okay!?”
If Kanon hadn’t caught him mid-air, he definitely would have mowed down a platoon’s worth of soldiers with his own body.
“I’m not, but...” As Kanon helped him get back on his feet, he clenched his scythe and glared at Sharon. “All right, it’s time to get real! I’ll beat that cockiness out of you!”
Talking big, he carried his scythe in one hand and launched himself toward Sharon while lobbing a dagger her way. Then, he flipped his head to the side.
“These toys will never—Ahh!”
Pow!
Immediately after deflecting the dagger, a blinding light flashed in front of her.
“This is the prototype of our newly developed ‘Firecracker Mark II’! It doesn’t do any damage, but it’ll blind you for a while!”
He pulled out a couple of regular Firecrackers and littered them around Sharon to mask his steps with the explosions.
“Take this!” Holding his scythe backward, he swung at Sharon from behind.
Clink!
Huh? Wait, I was expecting her to hunch down in tears.
“What are you shouting before a sneak attack for!? Are you stupid?”
The disappointment in her voice was as clear as day. She’d successfully used Al’s voice to pinpoint his location, and blocked his scythe with her sword after it slightly tore the back of her clothes.
Well, at least she won’t get mad at me for exposing her chest. Wait, what are those scars? He spotted a couple of ugly scars on Sharon’s back, but he didn’t have the time to ask where she’d gotten them.
“Oh well, that was just a distraction. My real goal is this!” Saying that, he took out a leather water pouch from his bag and impaled it on her sword.
“Wait, is this—!?”
Al’s mouth curled into a smile at Sharon’s dumbfounded expression.
“Exactly. It’s oil!”
After confirming that her sword had been coated in oil...
“Fire! Heed my call!”
...he produced a tiny flame at the tip of his finger and sent it flying.
Whoosh!
Her sword was engulfed in flames.
“Ahhh! H-Hey! What the hell are you doing!? This is a sacred artifact!”
“Just trying to get any edge I can!”
Sharon dropped her sword, greatly impairing her offensive power. This was Al’s chance to strike.
“Aaaaargh!”
He put all his might into his next attack, but she dodged it with ease. Regardless, he had to forge on. He employed every lesson he’d learned from her with his next flurry of attacks.
Pulling his arms closer to his side and lowering his stance so his swings would be more focused, Al began relentlessly yet precisely swinging at Sharon while also faking some of his strikes to throw her off.
But nothing worked. She danced around his strikes like a graceful ballerina.
“You’re finally putting our training to good use, but that won’t work anymore! I’m much nimbler without my sword!”
Al had expected her to be more agile, but his estimations were way off.
“How can you be so fast when you’re always stuffing yourself with food!?”
Sharon barely managed to dodge an overhead swing from Al.
Fwump!
His scythe got stuck in the ground.
“Because I’m a Diva!” She stepped on the scythe with one leg and kicked Al away with the other. “The tables have turned!”
Seeing that the flames had long dissipated from her sword, she jumped back and picked it up.
“Surrender now if you don’t want to get hurt even more!”
She watched Al tumble across the ground while resting her sword on her shoulder.
“Hah! Do you honestly think I could face Cecilia, Feena, Kanon, and all the citizens who fought tooth and nail to get me here if I surrendered after getting scratched up a little!?”
Al got up and charged at Sharon headfirst.
“Huh. Okay, then I’ll beat that sense of responsibility out of you!”
Sharon blasted off toward Al, closing the distance in a blink of an eye.
“Aaaaahhh!”
One swift strike to the side was enough to send Al flying, but her relentless onslaught didn’t end there. She practically teleported behind the airborne king and hit him back in the direction he’d come from. She repeated this routine a few times before letting him catch his breath.