I really didn’t see her losing to Jiwu. If there was any concern, it was over whether she could actually control Yog-Sothoth, I suppose. So just for extra insurance, I sent an order over to Raphael.
Acknowledged. Beginning analysis of the enemy’s possessed skill.
That should work, right?
Thus, for now, I decided to watch the battle unfold, preparing myself to step in at any time if need be.
Bernie was the first to react.
Grasping his pendant, he funneled his strength into it once more. Then the pendant itself morphed, changing shape and turning into a spear.
“I’ve never shown you this before, but spear combat’s actually my specialty. Let me give you a little show before you die.”
After contemptuously declaring that to us all, he dropped down low and readied himself for combat. Then, without any spellcasting, he invoked some magic on his spear. This was Thunder Rain, a lightning-type magic—a ranged attack, essentially, but all its energy was focused entirely on that spear. Pretty neat move, for sure, but not as much of a threat as I was imagining.
Benimaru fought back, infusing Dark Flame into his own blade. The black flames entwined themselves around the crimson sword, giving off an enigmatic sparkle. Another fine move—one that put him so high among the monster hierarchy that his command abilities seemed like just a nice bonus in comparison.
Then they both acted simultaneously.
I thought Bernie was only a magic-user, but his spear skills were incredible. All that bragging earlier really wasn’t just for show. Still, though, I was able to follow his movements with ease. What bothered me, though, was that Predict Future Attack still hadn’t activated for me. Which meant…
Report. The subject Bernie’s skill is preventing any interference.
Ah, I thought so. There was probably some kind of block on Jiwu, too, that prevented me from keeping up with her moves earlier. Both of them might’ve had a skill that protected them from any outside interference, which was pretty helpful for them…but what interested me more was what other sorts of skills they might have.
Benimaru and Bernie were waging a pretty even battle. I saw no distress at all on Benimaru’s face; he was keeping up with Bernie just fine. Bernie, meanwhile, was starting to look a tad irritated. Benimaru had more core strength, and that was giving him an edge. With the difference in equipped battle gear, I still thought this was Bernie’s fight to win, so I could get it if he was frustrated.
“Got some fight in you, huh?”
“You’re certainly a disappointment.”
Benimaru’s reply made Bernie visibly scowl. That must’ve been an affront to his pride, because now he was glaring at Benimaru like he’d killed his parents.
“How’s a monster get off saying that to me? You gonna keep saying that once you get a taste of this?”
With that shout, Bernie spun his spear around and attempted to get out of Benimaru’s range. Keeping himself both defended and at the ready to strike, he stepped back in order to attempt a finisher. But Benimaru wasn’t about to let him. He easily closed the distanced at once, expertly anticipating his moves.
It was quite a sight. I knew Benimaru had been doing a little clandestine training of his own lately, but I had no idea he had grown to that level… If you asked me, I’d say his skills were even better than Hakuro’s now. I mean, I thought Alberto was pretty fly with a sword, but there was no doubt in my mind that Benimaru surpassed him. And the way he controlled his Dark Flame! He wasn’t letting that stuff sweep him away at all. It was truly his own to handle, and I was amazed by it.
The unique skill Born Leader granted him complete control over his own power, and you couldn’t not have been impressed by it. I asked him not long ago whether Zegion was stronger than him, but looking at him perform now, I wasn’t so sure who was on top of whom any longer. Depending on how things went, the goddess of victory could’ve smiled at either one of them.
“W-wow…”
“Lemme just tell you right now, trying to fight power that strong’s just suicide, all right? And Rimuru’s even stronger than that, so maybe try not to mess around with me so much going forward, okay?”
“S-sure thing, Masayuki…”
I could hear Masayuki and Jinrai talking behind me. From their perspective, Benimaru and Bernie probably looked like a bunch of vague blurs in the air, jumping around in unpredictable directions. I’m sure they could tell how awesome they were anyway, but too bad for them, I guess.
Personally, I had been using Uriel’s Absolute Defense to protect them both from any stray bullets—or I suppose, stray explosive shock waves. But that was actually a lot tougher than it seemed. Bernie’s ultimate skill was applying itself to all his attacks, so if I wasn’t careful, he could absolutely bust through Absolute Defense. I mean, it was really Raphael’s problem and not mine, but still.
But enough about the pair behind me. I was more concerned about how Benimaru’s fight would turn out. Apparently Bernie’s finisher required him to be a certain distance away from his target to work. He’d been trying to push Benimaru away from him for a little while now, no longer trying to hide his frustration. Benimaru, meanwhile, was the very picture of calm composure, coolly cornering Bernie and ever so gradually starting to land real wounds on him. At this rate, I thought his victory was just a matter of time—but that turned out to be wishful thinking.
In the face of Benimaru’s onslaught, Bernie found himself thrown off-balance. That momentary opening allowed Benimaru to slash him down with his Dark Flame–infused blade. That should have been fatal, but Bernie just smirked at him.
“You can’t beat me!”
His face was bright as the sun, as if being cornered up to now was just a front—like he’d anticipated all this, or that we were all dancing in the palm of his hand, even. It was clear what had happened. Only an ultimate skill can counter an ultimate skill, and thanks to this ironclad rule, Benimaru’s attack was canceled out.
Now Bernie was the victorious one, while Benimaru’s face twisted in frustration. He must’ve thought that if his unique skills didn’t work, his baseline swordplay would… But reality was crueler than that. His sword did reach Bernie, but once again, his armor blocked it, preventing the blow from being fatal. Even worse, whatever damage it did deal, Bernie promptly cast recovery magic to heal up.
At this rate, the only way for Benimaru to win was with a killing blow. He was the better swordfighter, but Bernie had the ultimate skill, making this an extremely uphill battle for him. He was—really, for the first time I knew—in a really tough situation, and before long, Bernie had him on the defensive.
As Benimaru was put in that tight spot, Chloe was facing an unexpectedly tough bout of her own.
In terms of sheer ability, Chloe was by far the best—but Jiwu, a specialist at striking her foes’ weak points, didn’t even try to wage a typical swordfight against her. She was also doing things like putting up isolating barriers to keep Chloe from calling for backup or conjuring up toxic dark mist to blind her—all these things to help give her a situational advantage.
That sort of thing wouldn’t work on the masked Chloe, but with Jiwu so intent on escaping her at every moment, she was having trouble catching her. Jiwu kept running away; Chloe kept chasing her; and the result was a very prolonged battle.
…But hey, unlike Benimaru, Chloe’s got an ultimate skill, right? If she was more powerful than I was, I didn’t think she was about to lose to Jiwu. So I didn’t pay them particularly close attention, assuming that everything was cool with Chloe, but apparently things weren’t gonna go that easy. By the time Benimaru was thrown on the defensive, Chloe was facing some real trouble as well.
“You sure love scampering away from me, huh?” she said to Jiwu.
“Of course. Your sword’s too dangerous. I have a hunch it could penetrate my defenses.”
Jiwu was cautious. She was facing an unknown in Chloe, and she kept her head as she tried to deal with her. Chloe’s Absolute Severance was a unique skill, but for some reason, it boasted so much power that you could feasibly call it an ultimate if you wanted to. Maybe Jiwu was just being modest when faced with its power, but no, a Legend-class suit of armor definitely wouldn’t stop it. She even dealt damage to Veldora with it, so I’d have to say that Jiwu was taking the right strategy here.
“You know running around all day won’t beat me, don’t you?”
“I can’t deny that… But that’s not the problem. I’m not here to win; I’m here to protect Bernie. And once he kills that ogre, we’re both going to kill you next.”
I wasn’t about to take that sitting down, but then Jiwu started to get real tricky with me. Every time I tried to join in the fray, she’d start lobbing attacks at Labyrinth City behind me. The quarantined capital city was safely ensconced behind Masayuki and the others, but if any magic landed on them, I couldn’t guess how much damage it’d cause.
Even worse, Jiwu was asking for Bernie’s assistance.
“We’ve got too much unexpected trouble, Bernie. This woman’s a lot more dangerous than I thought. She’s too much to deal with alongside the demon lord Rimuru at the same time, so I want to play it safe. I need you to help me attack Labyrinth City to keep him from intervening.”
“Understood. I’ll give you a hand when I’m able.”
With Bernie joining in the potshots, that immediately doubled my burden. Masayuki and Jinrai had Resurrection Bracelets, so they’d be fine even in the worst-case scenario… But Labyrinth City was packed full of unwitting citizens. This was meant to be a safe space for them, and they wouldn’t all be wearing bracelets at all times—the adventurers evacuated in here would’ve each had one, but not your average goblin on the street.
So now I had to not only keep the guys behind me safe from stray magic blasts; I also had to deal with Jiwu’s and Bernie’s harassment. All their attacks on the city were of the ranged type, so I could just swallow it up with Belzebuth, Lord of Gluttony, and that was that, but now I no longer had the free time to help Chloe at all.
Like, seriously, man.
Good thing, then, that Chloe came here in time to help us out. If it were just Benimaru and me here, we might’ve been defeated long ago. After all, Benimaru was only barely able to stave off Bernie’s attacks. One false move, and he might be overwhelmed by them entirely, making it hard to keep his foe from attacking the city. The edge he had in absolute ability was what allowed him to keep this battle going, really. A single direct hit from Bernie’s onslaught would instantly kill him, but Benimaru handled it all with a calm, studied demeanor. The tables might be turned skillwise at the moment, but I still thought Benimaru deserved a round of applause.
Still, though… I thought of all these guys as little more than roadies for Masayuki, but they had some wild hidden abilities. In a way, the fact that they had deceived me for so long showed just how good they really were. Even Luminus didn’t give these guys the time of day when she met them at the festival. I guess I can’t blame myself—okay, Raphael—for overlooking them, too.
Regardless, I’d say we were in a pretty dire situation right now. In addition to everything else, my Thought Communication with Ramiris was cut off, so we were now forced to overcome this assault all by ourselves. And I guess Chloe could sense my anxiety, because she chose that moment to take a gamble—and that led to an unforeseen blunder.
“If that’s how it is, time to pull something out of my sleeve.”
If she had something to get us out of this situation, I’d really love to see it right about now. But for some reason, I had a bad premonition about it.
For a single moment, the world went dark on me. All movement stopped, and I felt like someone had tied me up with rope. Unable to comprehend what happened, I realized I had experienced this feeling some time before. It was when Guy and Chloe were fighting, I think…
Report. The subject Chloe Aubert’s life energy is confirmed to be falling. She appears to have failed to control her skill.
This was how having time stopped felt, I realized. Just as I did, Raphael spat out a warning—and then I noticed Chloe was back in child form.
“Whoa! Chloe?!”
“Oh, no way! This power’s too inefficient for me to handle right now—”
“I told you it was too hard to control for long periods of time!”
I didn’t know what happened, but it was clear Chloe’s “trick up her sleeve” failed big-time. Even worse, it also gravely compromised Chloe’s ability to fight. I guess she couldn’t fully control Yog-Sothoth after all. She seemed to have it pretty well mastered in the last fight with Guy, but I guess that was mostly Guy’s own power at work, with Chloe simply responding to it. That was still impressive enough, though—if she wasn’t able to move in that time-stopped world, it would’ve been a one-sided whipping Guy dealt to her.
But a practice battle is different from a real one. It looked like Chloe could still stop time for a moment, but it consumed a vast amount of energy. The proof was all in her current child form.
See, this is exactly why using untested powers on the spur of the moment like this is such a problem! It’d be a completely different story if she had full control over Yog-Sothoth, but not even Raphael had completed its analysis of that move yet, so it was a bad mistake to count on a miracle there.
(Yo! Chloe! You okay?)
(I might be in a little trouble. I can go back to my original form, but it’ll take a while before I’m my usual self again…)
She sounded frustrated through the Thought Communication. But at least things weren’t completely dire. Chloe wasn’t out of the battle permanently, which was a great relief.
“I don’t know what you were struggling to do, but you’re wasting your time. You can’t even figure out your own strength? You’re even more of a shambles than I thought.”
“Ha-ha-ha! Well, that’s just who she is. You were just being too careful, Jiwu.”
Jiwu and Bernie exchanged chuckles over Chloe’s mistake. But just then, a voice boomed in my mind like a message from the heavens.
Report. Analysis of the enemy’s skills complete.
Damn! That was fast!!
It still hadn’t wrapped up Chloe’s Yog-Sothoth yet, but Bernie’s and Jiwu’s ultimate skills were apparently a piece of cake by comparison. I would’ve been satisfied if we could have narrowed them down to a specific family of moves, even, but this was a happy miscalculation on my part.
So what’s up? Lay it on me.
Report. The subjects Bernie and Jiwu share a great number of similarities in abilities, to the point that they can be considered virtually identical. Unique skills are just that—skills borne from one’s personal individuality—and ultimate skills are born when a unique skill is brought past its set limits. But the fact that both of their skills are so similar indicates that—
…Are you saying Bernie and Jiwu borrowed their power from somebody?
Affirmative. The possibility is believed to be very high.
You know, I was thinking this was a little unnatural, too. If you want an ultimate skill, like, that’s not the kinda thing you acquire with some half-hearted backyard effort. Even Hinata was stuck at the unique level with her arsenal, and overcomers like Granville and Luminus hadn’t awakened any ultimates, either. I don’t mean to sound like a prick, but these aren’t the kind of clearance-rack abilities someone at Bernie’s and Jiwu’s level could just pick up out of nowhere. An ultimate skill borrows a lot of its characteristics from the person possessing it—and while both were showing great obstruction and concealment skills, neither was using their power for anything beyond that. I was on the lookout this whole time, thinking they were hiding something—but it looked like they weren’t.
Affirmative. They are demonstrating absolute superiority over magic and unique skills, as well as complete concealment of their own powers. These are the powers that have been loaned to the subject Bernie and the subject Jiwu. Calculating backward from their energy levels, neither are in any position to exercise more powers than these.
So I was correct when I figured there was nothing left?
You never do know how things will turn out until they’re over, I thought as I looked at the smiling Bernie and Jiwu.
(Benimaru! Chloe! I found the secret to their power. They’re nasty opponents, but they’re not unbeatable. I’ve got an idea along those lines, but—can you guys hear me out?)
They both agreed without a second thought.
(Of course. If I could get a good slash in with my sword, I’d have won this long ago… But he’s a defensive specialist, and it’s incredibly annoying.)
Benimaru must’ve been prepared to keep fighting like this for a long while to come, in order to keep himself from losing. Just keep your eyes on the prize; don’t let your opponent’s moves faze you. Diablo and Shion were bound to return sooner or later, and they could go on the counterattack then. That’s my Samurai General, all right—calm no matter the situation and totally reliable.
(I believe in you, too, Rimuru! I wanna make up for that mistake, so if you have a winning plan, I’m game for it, no matter what!)
Chloe was up for this, too. Unlike Benimaru, her fight was one she could’ve won if she wasn’t in such a hurry. Absolute Severance could’ve penetrated Jiwu’s defenses, and in a one-on-one battle, the assassin would’ve been no match for her.
Still, this was a good lesson for her. Now we all knew how inexperienced she was with her ultimate skill, but that was something she could work on in the future. I’m sure that’s gonna work itself out with practice, so for now, I had to focus on ending this battle.
(Okay, here’s the deal. I want to get Benimaru and I connected with a soul corridor. That way, I can lend him some of my powers.)
(I’d be glad to borrow them. It’s somewhat embarrassing to ask for your help here, Sir Rimuru, but anything beats being defeated. I promise I will bring you victory.)
Benimaru gladly agreed. That was typical of him—practicality always came ahead of pride. Besides, if our opponents were tapping into borrowed power, too, I didn’t see any reason to be ashamed of it. Pound for pound, Benimaru was definitely the better fighter anyway.
With that in mind, I applied Absolute Severance to Benimaru’s sword. This boasts pretty much the same performance as Chloe has access to. It’s essentially the reverse of Absolute Defense, so both might be canceled out when clashed against each other, but against Bernie, this oughtta work well enough.
So that took care of Benimaru. Now for Chloe.
(Chloe… Chronoa… Listen to me. If you can keep on buying time for us, Benimaru’s gonna beat Bernie, I promise. After that, here’s how you’ll deal with Jiwu…)
For her, we’d take the opposite pattern. Chloe was back in adult form, but far from her usual self strengthwise. It was better to take a safe approach with her to ensure we could seal the deal. She merely had to survive until Benimaru won, and all would be well. That was my idea, but:
(Whoa, wait a minute! I’m not about to lose here or anything! If it’s one-on-one, I’m positive we can win!)
(She’s right, Rimuru. Yog-Sothoth kind of fell through our fingers there, but if we get serious with this battle, we’re not gonna lose.)
Chloe and her alter ego were both eager enough. I expected that from them, so I was hardly surprised. So I decided to make another suggestion.
(Okay. Then I have one condition.)
(What?)
(Use Yog-Sothoth one more time. I want this victory to be perfect for you.)
(…Huh?)
(Like, you can stop time for a really tiny little bit, but it’s too short to work on Jiwu, right?)
It seemed to me that Chloe was in full control of her skills, as long as she didn’t go all reckless with them. When I said “really tiny little bit,” I couldn’t tell exactly how many seconds that was, but it probably wouldn’t be enough time to hunt down Jiwu and her ultimate skill. That was why she went over the limit like she did… But next time, she oughtta be just fine.
(I’ll help you out this time, okay? I’ll help with the calculations and stuff, and you can try it again.)
(Well, if you say so; I’m not complaining…)
(You’re going to open your computational domain to us? We ought to be able to control it then, definitely.)
Chloe and Chronoa said yes to the offer. They looked a little anxious still, but…um, so was I. This was Raphael’s idea, after all—can you blame me for wondering if this would actually work?
Guess I’d believe in the dude. It had to have an inkling this would work out, so I had to just trust Raphael and act accordingly.
Then Chronoa raised another issue.
(But I’m still not sure there’s enough energy. I can get into combat form, but I haven’t recovered enough to stop time yet. Even if your aid makes it more efficient, the current Chloe won’t be able to use the skill right at all.)
I was kinda wondering about that, too, actually. I knew I was planning to lend them my power and stuff, but would that suffice?
Affirmative. It is not a problem.
Good. Nice to get a firm yes there. I’m sure it’s got some kind of great plan, so I’ll stop bothering it for details.
(That won’t be a problem. If you don’t have enough, I’ll back you up.)
Or Raphael would anyway… But it’s not worth explaining everything here, so I’ll just take this opportunity to look way cool instead. That was enough to secure Chronoa’s agreement.
(All right. I’ll sign on, then. Time to show these two what they’ve got coming.)
So we had a plan. It was time for the counterattack.
Benimaru changed his offensive style. Until now he had been using a “static” sword stance, but after being granted Absolute Severance, he switched to a “dynamic” style. Static—or sei no tachi to borrow the samurai parlance—is a sword technique where the attacker allows their opponent to make the first move, with the focus on counterattacks. In other words, you’re parrying whatever comes at you instead of actively seeing chances to attack—a kind of offense-defense combo. The dynamic style, or dou no tachi, concentrates more on offense than defense; you’re basically trying to attack and win the day with a single strike, overwhelming your foe and never giving up the initiative.
This change in styles definitely registered with Bernie. Surprised, he went on the defensive. Now the tables were turned once more, but at this point, he still looked relaxed and in control.
That, however, vanished in an instant. Bernie was so in control only because he was confident—and all evidence so far backed him up—that Benimaru’s sword wouldn’t work against him. But all that was in the past.