“If we start a shootout in here, there’s a good chance a stray bullet will hit Satsuki hanging from the ceiling and boom, she might get blown up. Maybe we should take this somewhere else, Monk.”
Yeah, says the guy who put her in that situation in the first place.
And why was he acting like he’d just come up with some brilliant solution?
Seriously, this so-called Hero was infuriating down to his very core.
But wait….
As much as I hated to admit it, his suggestion wasn’t bad.
“…All right. But where are we going to fight?”
Judging from the viewers’ comments, I had already figured out that we were somewhere on the upper floors of the Guild Headquarters. I still had no idea why, after narrowly escaping the collapse of the Sky Castle, we’d been teleported here. But one thing was certain. If the bastard Hero and I fought at full strength in this place, there was a real possibility that the Guild staff still working on the lower floors would get caught in the crossfire.
I wasn’t eager to drag innocent people into our fight. And trying to battle while constantly worrying about Satsuki exploding if she took a stray hit would be nearly impossible.
So, changing the battlefield suited me just fine.
“I’ve got the perfect place.”
Wearing a sticky, self-satisfied grin, the bastard Hero pulled a smartphone-like device from his pocket and started tapping away at it. His thumb flew across the screen in a blur, deftly flicking through menus one-handed as he stared at the display.
Then—
“Whoa!”
“Daishi-san!”
“Old man!”
“Stay still. It’ll switch us to the destination in a second.”
Mina-chan’s panicked cry, Shion-san’s shout, the Hero’s detached mutter, and the shrill whirr of a space-time vortex twisting open all reached my ears at the same instant.
“!?”
Before I could even process what was happening, the world around me changed.
“This is…”
“My personal arena.”
A voice came from behind me.
I spun around. There stood the bastard Hero.
“An arena…”
“That’s right, you damn priest. Here, you can wreck the place as much as you want. No one’s going to care.”
I couldn’t afford to let my guard down. I immediately settled into a fighting stance, every muscle tense and ready. I didn’t have the luxury of taking in my surroundings, but even at a glance I could tell this place was some kind of sleek, futuristic dueling arena.
“Well then…”
The Hero said as he drew the sword hanging at his waist. The blade slipped free with a clean metallic ring before he casually raised it into position.
…He looks weak.
That was my honest first impression. His stance was riddled with openings. There wasn’t the slightest hint of pressure or killing intent coming from him. At that rate, I could probably close the distance with my superhuman speed and cut him down before he even had time to react.
Was it a trap…?
Or was he really just that weak, putting on airs he couldn’t back up?
The guy was a sneaky little bastard who specialized in traps and dirty tricks. No matter how defenseless he looked, charging in headfirst was obviously the wrong move.
In that case… how should I make my opening?
“Kuku…”
“…What’s so funny?”
“Hahaha… Nothing. I was just thinking it’s hilarious how hard a weakling is glaring at me.”
A cheap taunt. I wasn’t about to lose my temper and charge him over something like that.
“What have you rigged?”
“Hah… Well, I guess there’s no harm in telling you.”
I knew there was no way he’d agree to a straight-up fight. So he really had prepared something.
—But what?
“Your status.”
“Huh?”
“Check your status screen. I’ll wait.”
The bastard Hero lowered the tip of his sword until it rested toward the ground, making a show of having no intention of attacking.
Yeah, right. He was obviously waiting for me to let my guard down. I wasn’t falling for something that obvious.
…Then again, from a tactical standpoint, checking my current stats and skills one more time wasn’t a bad idea. It’d be useful to know exactly where I stood before the fight.
It’ll be fine. I’d fought more than my share of powerful enemies by now. Surely I could glance at my status screen without exposing an opening. It shouldn’t be any different from checking the livestream comments.
After a moment’s thought, I decided to play along and open the screen.
“Don’t you dare attack while I’m looking.”
Just to be safe, I made sure to warn him first.
| Name: Daishi Ajiri Class: Priest Level: 5 HP: 33/33 MP: 35/35 Strength: 6 Endurance: 5 Agility: 4 Intelligence: 10 Magic: 15 Skills: Detox (Lv1) Heal (Lv2) |
“…Eh?”
No.
No, no, no, no…
What?
Wait a second.
What the hell is this…?
“Heheheh… What’s wrong, you damn priest? So? What do your stats look like?”
The bastard Hero asked with an easy grin.
Still smiling confidently, he idly tapped the tip of his sword against the floor.
Clink. Clink.
“T-they’re wrong! Damn it… I’ll check again…”
The result was exactly the same!
| > Wait, what happened to his stats? > What did he do to you, old man!? > Someone explain! > The old man’s gone pale. > He definitely got weaker. > A debuff? > Is there some weakening device built into this arena? > No… judging by how freaked out he is, it’s gotta be worse than that. |
A debuff?
I wished it were something that mild.
This was…
“Well, that’s about what you’d expect from a level-five Priest, isn’t it?”
So he already knew.
Damn it…!
This had been his plan all along.
“I told you, didn’t I? We’re doing this fair and square.”
The Hero said, raising his sword once more and leveling the point straight at me. Apparently, inside this arena, all of my absurd stats and overpowered skills had been completely sealed away, overwritten with the values a normal Priest was supposed to have.
“No Dungeon Master’s cheats. Let’s have a real fight, you damn priest.”
He added with a grin.
“Ha… haha…”
I…
I might actually die here.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
Previous ⚜ Table of Contents ⚜ Next
