V4C4

Tesfia avoids theattacks of the mamono and swings her sword.

The differencebetween D rank and C rank mamono lays in the lack of damage her bladeinflicts upon them. While she can scratch their murky black skin, fatalinjuries are beyond her. [1]

Even if she wereonly dealing with D rank mamono , holding against that many wouldn’t bepossible. Regardless of how long she can hold out for, she is exhausting hermana. She’s doesn’t even know why she’s resisting— Everyone knew how thiswould end from the start.

Still …Regardless of how pointless fighting on is, Tesfia is unable to give up.

“—— ——!”

A mamono’s sharp arm somehow slides underneath Tesfia’s katana.

“ Kya !!”

It blows away Tesfia’sweakened body with its might. Tesfia, for the countless time, is sent tumblingover the ground.

The world isflipped. Her momentum subsides on the lake’s bank. Her consciousness is hazy,her stare is unfocused.

With feeble gasps,she raises her head. Crimson dyes her view.

With her fingers,she timidly touches her forehead and feels sticky blood seep over them.Regardless, it isn’t a gash that will kill her. Thus, she won’t give in justyet. With her sword as support, she gets back up.

Her thoughts aremuddled. Her heart beats so hard, it makes her wonder if it’s in her head.Immediately, she raises her katana and focuses on moving forward.

Mamono swoopdown on her team members, cramming together to pass through the now unguardedspace.

The mamono aren’t decreasing in number. Instead, to Tesfia they seem to have increased. Shehas yet to find a mamono’s core. As such, none have been destroyed. Thebiggest proof is a mamono that had its legs chopped off is closing in onher team members by crawling. Its eyes burn red with indignant rage.

“Not happening!!”

Magic doesn’tflash over her katana. Instead, she barely manages a frail glow with her swing.

“……!”

No mamono faltersfrom her attack. Tesfia, for the first time, reflects on herself. Her katana isa beloved weapon she has been using for years.

…However, mana nolonger flows through it. Her mana pool has finally dried up.

While such asituation sounds cool for a lone struggle, it doesn’t overturn the reality Tesfiafaces. She ruminates on a corresponding theory about the incompatiblerelationship between humans and mamono . [2]

The spider mamono ,as though initiating a final blow, releases a loud bark. It then lifts upseveral of its legs as though in prayer and laughs, kera kera .

Clusters of childlike spiders drop from the tree tops. Their sudden appearances are likepredators who were waiting for their prey to falter.

Tesfia no longerhas the strength to be surprised. From the start, she was already overwhelmedby despair due to the unfathomable danger.

She once moremanages to stand… In that way she undertakes a defensive battle, one that doesn’twithstand more than a few blows.

The mamono tormentTesfia, unleashing their furry on their prey. She staggers around, unable toavoid their onslaught. They tear off her sleeves with their claws. At the sametime, one slashes her hair clip, leaving her hair to scatter about.

Tesfia’s hairflutters before her face as she’s knocked off balance and sent flying throughthe air. The red shine of her hair resembles the crimson redness given off bythe eyes of mamono . However, unlike their eerie blood like dark redhues, her hair absorbs light and makes it a red of her own. [3]

As her hairflutters out of her sight, she helplessly falls on her back.

Tesfia glancestowards her group members and discovers that just about all of them havefainted from terror. Should I consider them lucky? Even though she can’teven move a single finger, she doesn’t want to close her eyes even till theend.

Mamono walktowards Tesfia. She can tell from the trembling of the ground. Death drawscloser with each and every step. The eerie, unpleasant, and jarring voices arealready far off.

Enough, I’m done.

Even though Tesfiais resigning herself to what’s to come, she praises herself. Then, in thatsituation, the leaves overhead spread, allowing her to glimpse at the sky.

So beautiful!!

That view,however, is soon blocked as a pointed object appears before her face. It is thehand or foot of a mamono , one deciding where to attack.

The countdown forTesfia’s execution begins, but her mind drifts to someplace else.

Even in a hopelesssituation like this, my magic responded. You can’t say I don’t have the rightattitude anymore.

For some mysteriousreason, she smiles and sheds tears of blood.

The sharp point ofcertain death moves to the crown of her head as though invited there. Then,after a brief pause, it swings down.

“______!”

She can’t figureout what happened. Even though she hadn’t closed her eyes from beginning toend, she can’t make sense of it.

The moment thepointed tip swung down, it vanished from sight. Off in the distance, she canhear shrieks that sound like screams. The following thumping sounds against thetrees are unending.

Not just thatattacking mamono , but all the mamono surrounding Tesfia wereblown away.

“I’m late.”

She hears afamiliar voice, one belonging to a man whose every word is laced with insolenceand haughtiness, and one that finds it bothersome to speak. Entering her sightis a person wearing an ominous and emotionless mask.

He slowly slideshis arms underneath her and lifts.

“You really are.”

The abusivelanguage the masked man breathes out is all Tesfia needs to recognize him. No,I’d kn ow who this is even without that. Tesfia knows that no one couldhave arrived there that faster from when she used the rescue signal. If therewas someone who could make it there in time, only one person comes to her mind.

“If you can talkthis much, then you should be fine.”

Regardless of thatremark, Arus properly confirms there aren’t any serious injuries on her body.The gash running across her forehead to under her hair isn’t serious, it’s ashallow cut. That he doesn’t have an aptitude to use healing magic to tend tosuch an injury is regrettable [4] , but he redirects histhoughts elsewhere.

Arus carriesTesfia to her other group members. A dazzling sword is stabbed into the groundthere. He sets her down so that her back rests against it.

“Keep living,”Tesfia isn’t sure if that’s the unspoken message she’s being given [5] . While such a request tosomeone who is riddled with wounds is harsh, she keeps her gaze upon Arus’back.

“Looks like Icouldn’t finish them off with the 200 th link. [6] ” With those words, Aruspulls out a knife from behind his waist.

Arus’ AWR’s 220chain link’s [Motioner [7] Link] can only project thedirection of their kinetic energy. In other words, by throwing the knife, hecan have it fly in a straight line towards a targeted mamono . It is anapplication of space interference magic.

However, the powerbehind it is quite weak. The mamono that were blown away are alreadygetting back up.

Arus looks overthe spider mamono . “One B rank, eight C, and no less than thirty-eightD… Quite a bit seem to have gathered here.” In an instant, he not onlydetermines the total number of the mamono , but even their ranks.

Tesfia, however,is more shocked by his ominous knife and its eerie chains. While she’s likelyto lose consciousness at any moment, her heart somehow continues to beat,preventing the door to her consciousness from closing.

The spider mamono seems to have made that lake its territory. While mamono aren’t the sameas magicians, there is nothing unusual with high ranking mamono beingfollowed by low ranking mamono .

“I’m a lecturer too,so don’t go believing you’ll die quickly.”

The chains onArus’s knife jingle in the air, jyara jyara as they’re flung out. Manaflows threw them in an instant.

Tesfia iscomforted by the fact that Arus is wearing a mask. It doesn’t let her see anyof his anger or resentment from being reflected on his face. To the currentexpression he’s making, I’m relieved not knowing it.

His knife drops ashe tosses it from his hand. The blade, without any resistance, sinks halfwayinto the ground.

—–With theknife as the center point, the ground freezes. In the time it takes to blink,the landscape changes. The lush, breath taking, landscape transforms into asilver, frozen, world.

Everything withinthat world is still. Scores of mamono are frozen. Branching from theirbodies are thorn like icicles.

Tesfia is familiarwith that magic. [Freeze] is a spell that seals the movements of mamono by enveloping the ground with ice. It is an incomplete version of the spellthat unfolded before her eyes, [Eternal Frozen World (Niflheim)], a spell that belongsto the highest rank of magic.

In wordlesssurprise, Tesfia misunderstands Arus of having the same ice system aptitude asherself. That brief conclusion is immediately reconsidered.

Arus doesn’tintend to stop there. In accordance to her aptitude, ice system magic has themost utility, easily able to be built upon. He tugs the chain back a bit andkicks the handle of the impaled knife.

Tesfia feels somethinglike a sound wave vibrate across her skin. However, none of the surroundingtrees are shaking.

[SeismicOsculation Wave (Rail Pine)] is a spell that induces vibration from insideindividuals. As such, all of the frozen mamono shatter until only oneremains.

The ice worlddisperses in a beam of light as Arus retracts his knife. It returns to beingmana. The remains of the mamono , however, do not.

“In… credible…”

Tesfia wasn’tremaining silent due to being overwhelmed. Instead, her gaping mouth haswithered her throat. It’s too hoarse for her to say anything else. If herthroat were hydrated… whether she’d be able to say anything is also dubious.

Arus turns around.He doesn’t look at Tesfia, but at the spider mamono released from itsfrozen state. From that, it can be inferred he purposely left it alive.

He seems to besaying it is time to clean up the garbage as he speaks an unexpected line [8] , “How about we getstarted?

“…You still awake?”

Arus’ eyes as heturns towards Tesfia are void of emotion. Tesfia, not knowing his expression,doesn’t know what to expect. Regardless, her shock motivates her to say, “As ifI could sleep after seeing something like that!”

Arus swings aroundhis knife in order to adjust its long chain as he runs.

Tesfia can’t tellif he’s dashing towards her. Blinking wasn’t her intention, but before sheknows it, the masked Arus is drawing closer to the mamono .

“You no longerhave any comrades.” Such is muttered out to no one in particular.

Is he asking whatit will do now that he’s slaughtered all the other mamono here?

The mamono’s human like mouth, a mouth inappropriate for insects, spews forth a roar full ofindignation.

The mamono raises tens of legs and repeatedly stomps down at Arus. Mud, potentiallycreated by the lake water, splatters all about. Then, its hundreds of strikes,without anyone noticing, stop thumping against the ground.

The mamono ,whether it noticed or not, holds its legs up overhead. Its bright, red,compound eyes stare in blank amazement.

Arus’ expressionseems to twist into a sneer underneath his mask as he ridicules the mamono .“Hahaa, were you trying to do something with those?”

Scores of the mamono’s hundreds of legs have been severed halfway up. The remaining stumps can nolonger reach the ground.

Its crimsoncompound eyes sway a bit as it quivers from anger. “Gukikikiiii kiki!!”

“ Fushuu ,”poisonous gas leaks from its mouth as it exhales. A different sound then comesfrom it neck as new legs sprout from it. Regardless, the amount generated areless than what was lost.

“You can dosomething like that too? In that case, you won’t need those other ones.”

Arus throws hisknife. The straight flying knife arcs through the air and twines around abundle of the mamono’s legs on one side of its body. Afterwards, he tugsthe chain in his hand with all his strength.

Mitsu mitsu , theblack legs make an unsettling sound as they rub against each other. Then,through the use of magic, they scrunch together in one go.

Baki baki , theycrumble into pieces without any trouble. The ground overflows with the mamono’s deep green bodily fluids.

The mamono shrieks as its massive body slants towards a side. It struggles to reorientitself with its remaining legs, but it can’t even gain a moment’s respite.

Overwhelming , Tesfia’seyes pop open in an instant as she watches from far off. Arus plays with the mamono the same way she was. He is already reaping its other legs with his knife.

The mamono is flat on the ground, overshadowed by Arus’ robe as he looks down on it from atopits back. The way he stares at it as though it’s nothing more than trash ismelancholic.

That’s when Tesfianotices a chill. “…is it over?”

Arus’ eyes,through the gaps in his mask, reflect no emotion as they stare down at the mamono .

“……!!”

The mamono’s abdomenswells a bit. At first, Tesfia thinks its breathing, but then Arus jumps back.The edges of his mouth rise from underneath his mask.

Smoke fumes fromthe mamono’s mouth as a dark liquid builds within it. The groundevaporates as some liquid leaks out and spills onto it, creating even moresmoke.

Once the mamono’s body swells to more than double its size, it hurls the thick concentrationof acid at Arus.

Not even a singledroplet touches him.

T/N: Wow, this was way more detailed than the one two finish we got in the manga.

~Gandire Alea

[1] ＤレートとＣレートでこうも違うのかと言うほど攻撃の威力以上に刃が通らなかった。ドス黒い皮膚に傷を付けることはできても致命傷となるダメージにはな繋がらない。

[2] 孤軍奮闘と言えば聞こえは良かった。それでも覆らない現実は対応説のように人間と魔物の相容れない関係を厳然たる事実としてテスフィアを弄ぶ。

[3] 光を吸収し、それを己のモノとして主張する赤色だ。

[4] こういうときに治癒魔法の適性がなかったのが悔やまれる場面であるが、

[5] 生きていてくれたという言外が彼女に伝わったかは定かではない。

[6] ２００番代では仕留められなかったか

[7] モーショネル

[8] 今のがゴミを掃除したとでも言うように返事に期待しないセリフが口を吐く。

<4.3 Arbitrary Disturbances 4.5 Concluding~ The Strongest One~>