TL: Yuki
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◇Etoile視点――――――
When I woke up, I confirmed that I"m in the medical room right now.
It took some time for me to remember what exactly happened, but I know for sure that have certainly lost and wasn"t able to defeat her.
This is a first for me, and I wonder where I went wrong.
First of all, her power is already on another dimension, me being a wall for her would be nothing more than just sarcasm.
I try to remember the details of what exactly happened during th match but right now I"m still a little confused. But somehow I can at least remember on how it all started.
First, shortly after the referee swings his hands down, she - Toto-san fired air bullets towards me. She was probably probing out my power because in the previous battle, this move was first witnessed during the Benihansan and brought her to victory.
However, though strong, it"s not powerful enough to push back my defense. In fact, it wasn"t even a threat for me.
I was still expecting more from her and probably because she knew that it was useless, she goes forward to engage in close combat.
Her movements are indeed that of an amateur, I easily dodged her using the phantom boots with minimum movements.
As a brief explanation about the Phantom boots, it"s basically boots with a magic effect (enchantment) on it that will distort the visual perception of those who attack the user giving off an illusion that would deviate from the user"s current postion.
And as I have expected, her skin was even tougher than a monster"s protective leather being able to take one my attacks and just right to my calculation, if used my sword against her, it would have been pretty much useless.
However, it seems like the damage I made pa.s.sed through to her and she"s starting to slow down after being hit 3 to 4 times now.
With this, I can probably beat her if keep on simply avoiding her while attacking. I am doing my best concentrating, and when I thought that this would be an easy fight, she changed tactics and was now using feints, even I was barely able to dodge that.
Still, with her movement now becoming more sluggish, I was certain of my victory but then… that happened.
Pausing for a bit, she suddenly said 「So that"s how it works」, and then all the damage that I thought have been acc.u.mulating felt like they all disappeared.
No, I also noticed it a while ago, but she was probably not even receiving damage since the start of the match.
She was probably acting to make me feel like I"m winning while she"s trying to find out the effects of the boots. Even if the visual recognition would be distorted, it doesn"t mean that everything else would also be affected, and it would be possible to determine the right location by using other senses other than sight.
At that moment my heart broke, I thought in the depths of my mind that it was already impossible to defeat her.
After that, my consciousness disappeared when she was able to land a straight hit toward me.
「To be a wall for her…… I won"t even become a proper opponent for her」
As embarra.s.sing I could think of it, I could now understand the feeling of that C Rank adventurer that I"ve preached.
I am claiming to be a strong warrior who has been directly taught by my master hailed as Sword King, and even that strength was recognized hailing me as an A Rank adventurer. In adventurer ranks, a rank of one or two above is already considered as a great wall, and it would be like an adult fighting a child. Then I thought, what was wrong with her giving up since the beginning of the match?
「Ah, Ane-san, are you ok!?」[TL:Ane-san Female Gangster Boss]
Then the aforementioned, Ceres-san then appeared to face me in the medical office.
「Ceres-san, About preaching you for abandoning our match from before, I would like to you in regards to that.」
After saying that, I sat up from my bed and then bowed. Then Ceres-san only shook her head and said it was fine denying what I"ve said.
「It was an excellent match Nee-san! About what Nee-san said, it made me realize. If an adventurer easily gives up, then there won"t be any adventures that they could go on to!! 」
Seeing him being this excited, I am somehow felt pained, but she still continued.
「I, what I was before all of this, I was considered to be the strongest in our village, that"s why I became an adventurer, and despite being recognized as such, I easily gave up when fighting against someone with a higher rank, but your preaching made me realize that it"s not what I"m supposed to do.
That time I was thinking, just what kind of adventurer did I turn into?
However, Nee-san"s preaching made me realize that I shouldn"t give up that easily and made me remember the days when I"ve just started my adventurer days. It"s more of me wanting to say my grat.i.tude than to hear Nee-san apologizing to me」
「…I was of help to you then, this useless me」
「Eh, what were you saying just now?」
「Nah, I was just talking to myself」
I laughed at my pitiful self inwardly. The case that I have taken is not about me beating Toto-san, and it was more to be thankful to her for showing me that there would always be others who would stand above me.
My purpose this time seems to have been fulfilled, and so I will be going on a trip after taking a short break to sort myself. That"s because there are still a lot of people out there who would probably be in need of my help.
It seems like Ceres-san was also able to find his path, and maybe someday he would also become a famous adventurer with t.i.tles attached.
Etoile-san seems to have taken measures against me, so I tried using a strategy of just being naïve in order to understand her power, but the effects of her equipment seems to be really annoying.
Trying things out at the beginning, I tried directly attacking her with the force that felt like I"m slapping a tree without breaking, and I was thinking that it would have been effective, but the result was only me feeling as if I slapped air and think that my eyes are playing a prank with me. I was also countered but the pain I"ve felt from that was so minor that I didn"t even consider it as a threat, but I was of me being weary about the effects of her shoes.
At first, I was thinking that maybe it is used for attacking because of the design of the shoes, but then I realized that it was more troublesome disrupting my sense of sight allowing her to easily dodge my attacks just like the time with Vergil-san. I might also become even more troublesome if it has something that would let you do a short dimension jump.
I was doing my best trying to hit her, but all of my attacks were easily dodged.
Early in the game, I still couldn"t hit her directly and Etoile-san also splendidly countered every time I attack, I let her hit me on purpose for me to grasp the true effects of her shoes.
Well, it"s not only the effect of the shoes but Etoile-san was also able to splendidly avoid me though.
And because of that, it was not almost impossible for me to hit her at that time, then I mixed in some feints and started to gradually pressure her in the middle of the match, and finally I understood that the location of her footsteps were different from the sound where it came from.
I was worried about the strange sensation at first but then I realize that it was that sensation itself that is making things strange.
After identifying her real position from that strange occurrence, I give her a punch, and that attack properly connected sending her flying out of the ring.
Well, I was thinking that I really had a great advantage this time, but she wasn"t able to deal any proper damage against me so it was kind of usesless.
Etoile-san was immediately taken straight to the medical office, and for that instant, recover magic did activate so she"s probably alright.
Well then, time to get my mind out of this match and return to watch the next fight… but I wonder if it"s alright?
It will be my turn again after the match of Virgilio-san who replaced me when I returned to the waiting area, and my next opponent would be the winner from their match.
Then next match should be a match between the winner Ornicsan who defeated Cliff and the winner for yesterday"s match Virgilio-san who was an A Rank adventurer that uses a magic sword.
Virgilio-san is a strong man in his thirties, and he was so tall probably over 2 meters and has a body filled with fine muscles. He has a two-handed sword on his back which looked really heavy, but Virgilio-san said that it was actually lighten than it looked and swings it around while being noisy about it, well it would also be too light for me though.
However, in the semifinals, the one who will win will be fighting consecutive battles, is it ok?
And on another note, the final battle will be against the previous champion the knight commander-sama who will be the opponent of the winner, so it will be a three consecutive battle if I won all my fights and I think it"s strange……
「Ne, ne, fighting done, what should do?」
「Nn, ah, were you not given the schedule?」
First thing I did, I asked the soldier who was waiting at the entrance of the waiting room.
The soldier too out a piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to me, but well I can"t read it you know.
「Etto, letters can"t read」
「Eh? It sure is rare finding people who can"t read」
He had the same reaction as the soldier yesterday. After all, it is definitely rare to find someone who can"t read letters…
「Today"s next battle is between Ornicsan and Virgilio-san, then it will be after a 30 minute break in order to avoid too much fatigue on the partic.i.p.ants. Toto-san"s match will be against the winner of this match as the semifinals, that will all for today"s battle」
「Eh, final match time, tomorrow?」
「Well yeah, we have to arrange a lot things before the match so the final match will be around 12 o"clock tomorrow, it will be a battle between the Knight Commander Vanil Mirt-sama and today"s final contender」
「various things?」
「Most n.o.bles watch the final match along with those who wants to see how the knight commander fights, because of that, the necessary preparations to improve the security of the area is needed」
「Ticket, what should do?」
「You can use the one that you have been using today, and well it should have been written… a you can"t read. Sorry about that.」
Well, now that I think about it, there was an area on the audience seat that was cleared up a while ago. It must be the place where n.o.bles and the likes are seated.
If there"s time for a break, then I"ll go back to mom and relax for now to calm down.
「Umm, when late, what to do?」
「Well, there will still be time before this match ends, there"s also around 30 minutes before the next match start, you can come to the waiting room at that time」
「Nn」
After that I waved to the soldier-san and return to where mom is after pa.s.sing by the corridor and returning to where we sit.