“I won’t buy that, you idiot!”
“You can’t recognize the truth when you hear it and call me an idiot? This is why humans are nothing more than planarians!” Narberal flashed her eyes at Khajit.
It was such a strong gaze that it gave him the chills, and he took a step back. As if to shake himself free of his fear, he gave an order. “Get her, skeletal dragons!”
The dragons, maintaining proximity to Khajit, attacked Narberal again. She dodged one blow and tried to move in but lost her chance while evading a second. In the midst of that back-and-forth, Khajit made a decisive strike.
“Acid Javelin!”
The magic spear flew straight at her face, and Narberal moved her head, without thinking, to dodge it. That was a mistake. It wouldn’t have done anything if it had hit her, so she should have ignored it. But since it was aimed at her face, her instincts had taken over. This was an error only a caster who hadn’t concentrated their efforts on melee combat would make—and she paid for it.
With a screeching noise, Narberal’s view abruptly changed—everything flew by sideways. After a moment of weightlessness, she crashed into the ground. She’d taken a swipe of a skeletal dragon’s tail to her left upper arm, but still tumbling over and over, she couldn’t tell what had happened.
The multiple defensive spells she had cast meant there wasn’t much pain. She was flat on the ground, but before her eyes were two skeletal dragons. Both of them were brandishing their front legs.
It seemed like the end of the line. Normally, it would be.
“If you surrender, I’ll spare you!” Khajit, sure of his victory, grinned sadistically. Surely he had no intention of sparing her. That grin spoke louder than his words—he would simply savor the look on her face as he crushed her after she’d pleaded for her life.
Narberal had sat up, and her face was twisted in anger. “…an…sc…m…”
“…What?”
She glared at him. “Human scum, don’t talk that shit to me, you piece of garbage!”
Eyes bulging, Khajit shivered and screamed a panicky order. “Crush her, skeletal dragons!”
As the feet began to move, Narberal smiled. She couldn’t miss the voice of the one she worshipped, no matter how far away it was coming from:
“Narberal Gamma! Show them the might of Nazarick!”
“…As my lord wishes. Then, I shall face them not as Nabe, but as Narberal Gamma!”
She was still on the ground, and the dragon legs seemed like they were about to crush her. One blink of an eye and she’d be stomped flat. Then she cast a spell—
“Teleportation!”
Her view changed instantaneously—to one from more than 1,600 feet in the air.
Naturally, having no wings, she plummeted toward the ground.
The wind roared past her, and the ground grew closer. She cackled. “Fly!” Gradually slowing, she eventually came to a stop hovering in the air. Looking down, she saw the battlefield she had just been on, Khajit, and the two skeletal dragons. They glanced around restlessly, no doubt bewildered by her sudden disappearance.
“Ahh! I’m tired!” Clementine commented loud enough that Ainz could hear. After several minutes of action, Ainz’s great swords hadn’t so much as grazed her. “But ya know, ya do seem pretty strong. You’re probably pretty proud of that, but—” Her smile turned carnivorous. “—are you some kinda dummy? You’re just swingin’ that thing around with brute strength. There’s no technique—you’re like a kid swingin’ a stick around. I mean, it doesn’t do ya any good to have a sword in each hand if ya can’t use ’em right; it’d be smarter to use just one. I dunno if you appreciate the complexities of being a warrior!”
“Then maybe you should attack me. All you’ve been doing this whole time is evading. You’re the one who’s deeper in trouble the more time goes by, right?” Ainz sneered.
Clementine scowled. It was true that she hadn’t attacked him even once; she’d just been dodging. Faced with his superior physical abilities, she hadn’t been able to find an opening. In other words, she wasn’t having such an easy time, either. Her irritation at herself stemmed from her earlier bragging.
“I thought there weren’t any warriors who could beat you! Where’d that confidence go?”
“…” Finally, allowing Ainz to provoke her, she drew a weapon. From the four stilettos and a morning star she had hanging from her waist, she had selected a stiletto.
Noticing with his extraordinary vision that the morning star was caked with what looked like meaty blood, Ainz clenched both of his great swords with his full strength.
Just as both of them were about to step forward, the ground shook.
In combat mode, Clementine couldn’t shift her gaze too much, but she did take a look to see what was going on—there were two dragons made out of bones over where Narberal was fighting.
“Skeletal…dragons…?”
“Bingooo! That’s right—ya know your stuff, huh? They’re a caster’s worst nightmare!”
“I see. So that’s why you say Nabe can’t win.”
“Exxxactly.” Having regained composure with the appearance of the skeletal dragons, Clementine returned to her previous mocking tone.
The illusion face under Ainz’s helmet grimaced. Skeletal dragons were a tough opponent for casters. And against two of them, Narberal the way she was now had as good as no chance at winning.
Perhaps sensing his frustration, Clementine made a subtle move. It could have been a feint, but it wouldn’t be only a feint. If a warrior showed a talented adversary a weak spot, they could bet that advantage would be taken.
Pushing Narberal to the edge of his consciousness, Ainz thrust his left hand’s great sword out like a spear as a threat and held the one in his right hand over his head.
Clementine’s weapon was a stabbing weapon; it didn’t have the variety of attacks a cutting weapon did. Stab—that was all it could do. And her stilettos were delicate, not sturdy enough to clash with a great sword.
So with his left sword up, making it difficult for her to approach, he just waited for her. But she realized what he was up to.
“Do you have a way to close that distance?”
“Oh, I dunno…” Her casual attitude, relaxed appearance, and flippant smile told him she wasn’t lacking ideas.
Slowly her posture changed. It was as if she were crouched and on her mark but standing up—an odd posture. In a way, it was kind of a funny pose, but it definitely wasn’t a stance that could be taken lightly.
Then, she moved. To Ainz’s alert eyes, she was like a spring that had been compressed to its limits and sprung. She was racing directly at him at a speed that was hard for Ainz to believe; it seemed beyond what flesh was capable of.
Like a storm moving in to swallow everything up in a moment, Clementine closed the distance in the blink of an eye and slipped past the pointed great sword without losing speed.
Her movements were like a snake going in for the kill. Startled, Ainz swung his right arm with his immense strength. The mighty attack seemed to cut the very air and was accompanied by unimaginable destructive power.
He had less than a split second but noted the fissure-like smile on her face intensify.
“Impenetrable Fortress!”
Beholding something that should be impossible, Ainz shivered in astonishment. The slim stiletto had taken the full force of the blow from his great sword, more than ten times its weight.
That sword taking Ainz’s glorious attack should have snapped in half, or even if by some miracle it didn’t, Clementine should have gone flying. On the contrary, Ainz’s sword bounced hard, as if he’d hit a tremendously solid castle wall.
Clementine jumped at his wide-open chest like a lover slipping into an embrace. Her well-formed features and the smile widened across them loomed large in his field of vision.
The attack came well before he could retreat. Uniting her full-throttle sprint with the strength of all her muscles, she took advantage
of her body’s momentum to deliver a strike that deserved the word meteor.
The sparkle of a flourish and the awful kreeeee of metal scraping metal echoed loudly through the graveyard. Ainz hastily swung his left great sword, but Clementine jumped aside.
He knew her trick. “A martial art?” They were moves to be careful of—skills that didn’t exist in Yggdrasil, warrior magic. It must protect her sword and give her physical indomitability. That had to have been how she’d repelled Ainz’s attack.
“…Tough stuff! What’s that armor made of, adamantite?”
There wasn’t any pain at all, but at the time of that abrasive noise, he’d felt something with a sharp point stick into the area near his left shoulder. Shocked, he looked at his shoulder and discovered a slight dent. It may not have had any special magical powers, but this was still armor made by a level-100 caster—and it was proportionally hard. The fact that Clementine had managed to damage it spoke volumes to her destructive power.
“Well, whatever. Just the next time I gotta hit somewhere less heavily protected. Aw, but I wanted to chip away at ya till ya couldn’t move and torture you! Too bad—what a shame.”
Hearing that she attacked his shoulder not by chance but because she was aiming to incapacitate his arm caused Ainz to respect her—a bit—for the first time.
Ainz always ended up swinging with causing damage in mind. That was sufficient enough when one sound hit would kill his opponent, but against a tougher one, he had to think about how the battle would play out. A good lesson to learn…
“Okay, here I go!”
While he’d been admiring her, Clementine had once again taken the odd bent-over posture from before. In response, Ainz raised the great sword in his right hand. But this time he didn’t thrust out the left sword.
Seeing that, Clementine smiled and rushed forward. She was moving so fast, even Ainz’s dynamic visual acuity couldn’t make her out. If she hadn’t been coming in a straight line, he might have lost sight of her.
She flew at him like a sinister arrow, and in response, he carried out his planned attack. The great sword in his right hand swung and—
“Impenetrable Fortress!”
—bounced back against the same martial art from before. But he’d expected that. The previous time he had swung as hard as he could so the rebound had broken his stance. This time he didn’t use as much force.
The shock felt like hitting a hard wall, but he overcame it with the strength of his arm and then swung his left great sword. He was confident she couldn’t withstand two of his transcendent full-power blows.
But before he could connect, she used a different martial art. “Flow Acceleration!” It made something mind-boggling happen.
It was almost as if she had manipulated time. In this sluggish space where everything moved as if it had fallen into a highly viscous fluid, Ainz’s great sword moved at a snail’s pace.
Only Clementine maintained her speed in this quiet world; she easily evaded his counterattack and slipped right in front of him.
Perhaps it was in Ainz’s head. He was wearing rings against time manipulation and that hindered movement to prevent external forces from slowing him down—not that this couldn’t be something new…
It must have just been her sudden acceleration causing him to perceive things that way in his heightened battle mode. After all, he’d seen this martial art before, and it hadn’t affected him like this.
“Gaze—” It was a martial art Gazef Stronoff had used.
Before he could get the shout out, the stiletto stabbed at him. She’d aimed for the narrow slit in his helmet—his eyes.
Ainz shook his head away and avoided getting it stuck in the slit, but the sound of metal grating on his helmet was horrible. Before he could feel any relief at having dodged, he caught Clementine in the corner of his vision holding her stiletto back, as if she were coiled and ready to spring.
“Tch!”
Even taking into account their difference in strength, Clementine’s direct line of attack was faster than the arc of Ainz’s sword. This time she didn’t miss, and her sword stabbed into the slit of his helmet.
“Huh?”
“Guh!”
The puzzled question and flustered grunt occurred at the same time.
Pressing his helmet with the hand that held his sword, Ainz retreated quite a ways without countering.
Watching him from the corner of her eye as she looked curiously at the tip of her stiletto, she joked, “Better stop talking about handicaps—if ya don’t start fighting for real, you’re gonna die!” Ainz didn’t say anything, so she asked a question to clear up her doubt. “But how did ya not take any damage from that attack before? I thought for sure it’d be a pain parade!”
“Sheesh. I’ve learned…a lot during this fight—first about a new martial art, and then about how important it is to use your whole body for balance and not just swinging your weapon around.”
“Huh? Are you stupid? You figured this out now? Some warrior you are! Well, you’re gonna die now, anyway, so it doesn’t matter. But I did want you to answer my question… Was it a defensive martial art?”
Sensing her annoyance, Ainz smiled wryly under his helmet—about his qualifications as a warrior, she was right. “Ah, I really came underprepared. I apologize. But we’re running out of time. Let’s stop playing games.” Ignoring the confusion on Clementine’s face, he raised his voice. “Narberal Gamma! Show them the might of Nazarick!”
Ainz spun the hilts of his swords till their blades pointed down and thrust them into the ground. Putting his empty hands out in front of him, he beckoned her gently. “Now come at me like you’re ready to die.”
“…So it wasn’t a bluff, ’ey? You can actually use Fly. But how did you dodge that attack? I couldn’t see because I was behind the dragon…”
The voice directed at Narberal as she slowly descended back to earth was cautious. He couldn’t fathom why she hadn’t used Fly to run away. Especially having encountered two skeletal dragons, who wouldn’t pull out if they could?
“Hmph. You think you have a chance at winning? Against skeletal dragons with absolute magic resistance?”
“There are any number of ways for me to win, but first…” Narberal grabbed the shoulder of her robe and tore it away. “Rejoice, human scum, for you have received the honor of facing Narberal Gamma of the Pleiades, combat maids loyal to the absolute ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, Supreme Being Lord Ainz Ooal Gown!”
All of her gear had transformed. She wore vambraces and greaves of silver, gold, and black metal, armor like a maid outfit from a manga, and instead of a helmet, a white lace headpiece. In her hands she gripped a staff of silver-coated gold.
The performance of custom items in Yggdrasil could be changed by changing their data-crystal makeup. Narberal’s robe had the quick-change crystal, so she could change her whole gear set without spending any time swapping pieces.
The robe was put “away” into space.
Khajit blinked several times at the maid who’d just appeared before his eyes. Then he finally grasped the situation—“What?!”—and shouted in disbelief.
Sure, it was perfectly normal for the caster in front of him to turn into a maid.
Her outfit was a joke and made him uncomfortable, but the exceedingly calm look on her face made him panic, and he ordered the skeletal dragons to attack. The two dragons approached Narberal with surprising agility. One of the huge bony monsters went to crush her with a foreleg, but when it was a hair’s breadth from whacking her, she cast a spell.
“Dimensional Move!”
“Not again!”
Narberal vanished once more.
Trying to see where she went, Khajit remembered last time and looked up in the sky. But this time he would learn where she’d gone via pain.
“Gyahh!” His shriek echoed across the graveyard. A white-hot sensation suddenly shot through his left shoulder and a dull pain radiated through his body with each
beat of his heart. Stupefied, he looked at the spot and saw a sharp point jutting out.
The next second, the blade was ripped carelessly out, creating a new wave of acute pain. “Gah! Gyah!” The vibrations of his bone being sawed propagated through his body, combining with the pain to increase his discomfort. Blood glubbed out of the puncture, soaking his black robe. In so much agony he was drooling, he spun around to see what had happened.
Narberal was standing there with a puzzled look on her face. “Does it hurt that much?”
“Ngh!”
She was toying with a freshly bloodied black-bladed dagger in the hand that didn’t hold her staff.
Khajit was in so much agony he couldn’t even speak.
Because he was a caster, he was never out on the front lines, and he was waited on by so many people that although he had occasion to give pain, he was rarely on the receiving end. As a result, he had low tolerance.
As clammy sweat coated his forehead, inside his head, he gave orders to the skeletal dragons. Narberal leaped away—Fly was faster than running.
The dragons inserted themselves into the open space. Behind them, Khajit, who, having secured a safe location, had regained a shred of composure, finally understood the significance of Narberal’s previous spell.
It was—
“Teleportation magic?!”
Dimensional Move was a tier-three spell, but it was generally thought of as an escape spell used to quickly put distance between the caster and their opponent.
But that was in the case of a physically inferior caster. If one had strength that could put a warrior to shame, the spell could be just as valuable as an attack spell—no, since it was unblockable, it was actually better than lesser attack spells.
Holding his shoulder, he scowled at Narberal. “I see. So your ace move is teleporting in for the kill! And that’s also how you evaded that attack earlier!”
It was certainly a pesky ace. If magic didn’t work on the skeletal dragons, she could kill the summoner. An obvious strategy. And if she made effective use of teleportation magic, there was a good chance he wouldn’t be able to stop her.
The Dark Warrior Page 22
