Chapter 7:
Silver and Blue
NAMELESS KNIGHT. Orc general. Lightning beast. Yanagi. High ogre.
I’d defeated so many intimidating enemies thus far, including ones that were double my level. My unique arsenal—Nameless, Greed, and Dungeon Teleportation—had helped me gain the experience to overcome them. Maybe those fights were miracles, like falling on thin ice without cracking it. This boss’s level was almost triple mine, a matchup so uneven that I felt like my miracles had run out, leaving me with only despair.
How could I fight and protect a crowd of vulnerable people? Non-adventurers couldn’t stay conscious around overwhelming mana for long, so it wasn’t long before they had all collapsed to the ground.
These were the worst possible conditions to fight under.
I was powerless.
But…I couldn’t quit without trying. I just couldn’t.
I knew this wasn’t a typical enemy as soon as I saw it. That spurred me to make a big decision. I withdrew a collection of magic items from my Item Box.
Fortifying Medicine
Strengthens the body and decreases damage by 30% for 60 seconds.
Cooldown: 10 minutes.
“Yagami-san, distribute these to the adventurers,” I said.
“Is this the Fortifying Medicine? And enough for everyone?” he asked, stunned. “But you only beat that dungeon once, and it only rewarded one of these. How did you get this…?”
His words tapered off. He must’ve suspected what secret I was hiding. At least that made the conversation easier.
“Please, create a barrier,” I said. “That way the civilians won’t get caught up in the battle.”
“…’Course we’re gonna do that,” he said. “Matsumoto, Misaka, you heard him. Form a defensive line!”
“Roger!” Matsumoto said.
“Yes, sir,” Misaka replied with a nod.
The two mages took position, but we knew a measly magic barrier wouldn’t stop the ifrit’s attacks. The barrier would prevent the ifrit’s dense mana from smothering the civilians. Without intervention, the mana was enough to kill them.
I turned the other way. “Hana, Rei, and Yui, you three shouldn’t fight. Group up with the others.”
“Okay,” Hana said without question.
“I really, really don’t get what’s happening, but I trust you, Rin-senpai,” Yui said.
They hurried inside the barrier, but Rei lingered, a pained expression painted across her face. A moment later, she followed. I felt terrible, having heard her desire to support me just a short time ago, but she couldn’t participate in this fight.
All three of them had superior talents. Rei had Magic Sword—the ability to create swords with different abilities. Hana had Stock—the ability to copy anyone’s skill. Yui had her healing knack—the high aptitude for any sort of Recovery Magic and Enhancement Magic. Regrettably, these skills weren’t enough to take on the ifrit. Even Yagami-san’s party was shaking with fear.
And so was I, but I had to beat it.
The ifrit moved. In the center of its burning face, it opened two sparking, golden eyes. They seemed to roll until they focused on their target: me.
“Sensing the highest-level adventurer in the group, huh?” I said. “Gee, I’m honored. Battle Barrier!”
Battle Barrier LV 5
By draining MP, this skill creates a mana barrier around the target. (The strength and duration of the effect changes according to skill level.)
Cooldown time: 60 seconds.
Once Battle Barrier was set, I sprinted a half-loop around the ifrit. I was a bit far from the others, but this way, the fight wouldn’t sweep them up.
The ifrit released an air-shaking howl as it watched me dart past it. It swung its arm with unnatural, elemental speed disproportionate to its huge size. Uh-oh. The flames of its arms unwound then twisted into a hammer-shaped fist. I sped up and narrowly dodged. The fist slammed into the ground no more than a meter away.
In an instant, my vision turned crimson.
“What?!”
Its fist triggered an explosion so powerful, the word didn’t feel sufficient. The strike created a shockwave and left behind a crumbling crater that crackled with fire in its wake. The fervent heat of the fire incinerated the garden’s delicate flowers and evaporated the lake. The stifling heat made me break out in a sweat at a distance and with Battle Barrier in play. This monster was nasty. One hit from this thing would roast me into charcoal or maybe scorch me straight to the bone.
What could I do? How could I defeat such a mighty enemy?
Think. The second I stopped thinking was the second I’d lose. Our makeshift party wasn’t powerful enough to win without outsmarting the ifrit. I was starting to feel stuck when an idea popped into my head. In the aftermath of its hammer attack and the follow-up explosion, the ifrit’s arm seemed…bare. I thought its whole body was made of fire, but it had a fleshy, susceptible body beneath the whirl of flames.
If it had a solid body, physical attacks would work.
That still isn’t enough. I need to figure out how to break through that wall of fire.
Stealing the fire cloak with Greed, like I had against the salamander, wasn’t an option. The MP loss would be horrific, and there was no certainty I even had enough to pull it off. I wasn’t even sure I could do it at full MP.
Could I attack the arm during the time it came down and the fire exploded? Attacking the arm wouldn’t kill it…but that was all I could do right now.
The ifrit roared and lifted its arm again.
“Now!” I shouted.
I made my move as the arm slammed down. Nameless sliced into the tough hide. It was hard to push through—but not impossible. It would definitely deal damage, but nothing fatal.
“Amane! Above you!” Yagami-san shouted.
“Time Zero!”
The other arm slammed down milliseconds after I teleported away.
A combo attack, huh? It seemed the ifrit didn’t like me running circles around it. Evasion was my specialty, so I wasn’t going to take a hit lying down.
“I’ve gotta win this,” I said to myself. With my courage bolstered, I darted toward the ifrit again.
Our stalemate dragged on. The ifrit launched its two-arm combo and unleashed bursts of fire. I evaded them with Time Zero and attacked when I had an opportunity. Yagami-san’s party intermittently used magic to distract it. I couldn’t let the ifrit actually attack them, though, so I constantly struggled to pull its attention back to myself.
As we fluctuated between offense and defense, I monitored the ifrit’s movements to figure out where the magic stone inside its body resided. Every single monster had a magic stone. Destroying the magic stone might kill it faster than dealing damage.
I didn’t love using this method because destroying a magic stone meant destroying a valuable item—not to mention destroying the monster’s body and the lucrative parts that came with it—but this situation was too dire to consider the opportunity cost. Getting out alive would be the real reward. Accounting for my lack of power and the ifrit’s enormity, this was the last method available to me. But as I searched for the right moment to attack its weak point, something else interrupted.
“Grrrooooooohhhhh!!”
“What the heck?!” I exclaimed.