Chapter 16
Ari had no choice but to realize her mistake.
For just a brief moment, she clearly felt it.
That distant realm she had never once witnessed in her life.
‘What have I done···’
By then, the emotion known as jealousy had long since vanished from her heart.
Jealousy was something one could feel only when one could imagine catching up to the other person.
Just as an ordinary person could not feel jealous of a storm, Ari was no different.
She raised her head and looked at Duke.
Death in a helmet was approaching, its face cast in shadow.
Only then did she realize Duke’s intention.
She had to come at him with everything she had.
Otherwise-
‘I’ll die.’
From Duke’s perspective, she was nothing more than a disposable nobody.
Even if Rex protected her, dying before that natural disaster would not be enough to atone for the karma she had accumulated.
‘Kuh···’
There was only one way to survive: prove her usefulness.
From that moment on, the nature of the duel changed.
This was no longer a duel in which they were getting to know each other. A challenge that placed her survival on the line had begun.
She began running in circles around Duke.
Meanwhile, Duke merely stood in place, looking straight ahead.
She gradually tightened the circle, then thrust a hand blade at the back of his neck from behind, aiming for the gap between his helmet and clothes.
This was another act of targeting a vital point that should be avoided in a duel.
But Duke calmly turned his head slightly to the side and lightly evaded the attack.
The hand blade aimed at his neck passed over his shoulder, beside his helmet, and extended out in front of Duke.
He twisted his grip around the hand that had extended over his shoulder and bent slightly at the waist.
Using his shoulder as a fulcrum, he sent her body flying into the air.
Duke even adjusted her posture in midair so it would be easier for her to perform a breakfall.
Lightly.
It was a clean shoulder throw, but she landed on her feet rather than her back.
Duke beckoned to her with his left hand.
“Again.”
Still dazed and staring blankly, she came to her senses and charged at Duke again.
She aimed the heels of both palms at Duke’s solar plexus.
Once again, Duke twisted his body slightly and knocked her hands aside to evade the attack.
“Again.”
She had been neutralized twice.
Ari knew that Duke had had ample opportunities to counterattack during those brief openings.
Even so, Duke did not counterattack her.
Instead, he merely broke her posture without going so far as to injure her.
By this point, she had no choice but to realize Duke’s intention.
‘Ah···’
- “It is not a good habit to assume that everyone will view their opponent by your standards.”
Duke’s words came back to her.
Of course, she had assumed that Duke was displeased.
That was why she had attacked with everything she had to prove her usefulness.
But Duke was not angry at all.
As though he had never forgotten the purpose of this duel from the very beginning, he consistently took care to let her display her full power.
‘If it were me···’
If it had been her, she would already have forgotten that this was a duel and fought a battle to the death.
‘Haha···’
She could not help letting out a hollow laugh.
‘A perfect defeat.’
In skill, loyalty, character, and the breadth of her heart, she had suffered a perfect defeat.
It was a perfect defeat that inspired not jealousy, but only awe.
As a sign that she acknowledged her defeat, she showed Duke the crown of her head.
“I’m sorry, Sir Urwick.”
Along with her anger, her fighting spirit subsided.
But Duke could not conceal his disappointment as he watched Ari’s fighting spirit fade.
‘Ah, the newbie realized reality···’
*
The veteran player’s third most enjoyable time had come to an end.
The happiest time was when a newbie burned with competitive spirit without knowing anything, but Ari had realized the reality of the situation and stopped throwing punches.
‘At this rate, she won’t fight me anymore.’
Duke’s mood grew even more depressed.
But that lasted only a moment.
Duke realized that this was his own misunderstanding.
Her waning fighting spirit had begun to flare up again.
It was clearly a powerful fighting spirit that could not even be compared with what she had shown moments earlier.
‘Huh?’
Duke hurriedly examined her realm.
And when he realized that her level had risen by one, he could not conceal his joy.
‘Did she··· break through the wall?’
The newbie had broken through a wall right before his eyes in the middle of a duel.
Duke hurriedly began searching for the cause of her breakthrough.
Although he was anything but well-read, the ability to judge people was a virtue of a final boss, so he had cultivated it to some extent.
Before long, he found the fortuitous opportunity that had raised Ari to level 30.
“You’ve realized humility.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Sir Urwick.”
The adolescent tiger that had been hissing moments ago had vanished somewhere, and a martial artist bearing the dignity of a Tiger King now stood before him.
Just as Duke had said, she had awakened to humility.
“Thanks to you, the cat inside me has realized how vast the world is.”
Duke shuddered faintly beneath his cloak.
If he had not been in final-boss mode, wouldn’t he have casually reached climax by now?
While Duke pinched his thigh hard enough to bruise it, she brought both fists to her sides.
As martial artists did before a duel, she saluted with disciplined form.
“I, Arabella, humbly ask you, Sir Urwick: please grant me the opportunity to broaden my horizons.”
He could sense the competitive spirit he had thought had subsided returning to her.
No, it was not competitive spirit.
‘Fighting spirit.’
The corners of Duke’s mouth twitched.
Competitive spirit was the desire to take victory from one’s opponent.
It was not a bad thing, but it was somewhat inappropriate to feel toward an opponent whose realm was so far beyond one’s own.
Put harshly, it meant not knowing one’s place.
But fighting spirit was different.
It was the will to challenge oneself in pursuit of a goal, even while knowing one would lose.
From her gaze, Duke realized what she had chosen as the goal of her fighting spirit.
“Ordinarily··· wearing this cloak in front of a martial artist like you would be rude, but I will not remove it out of respect for your will.”
Duke’s words brought color to her face.
‘As expected of Sir Urwick!’
Such insight—to understand her intentions even though she had not asked.
‘He truly is more than worthy of becoming my master.’
She had broken through the level-30 wall because she had met Duke, her spiritual master, and realized humility.
She tightened the straps of her gauntlets even further.
‘I have to prove that I’m worthy of calling myself his disciple.’
Of course, she knew she was being shameless.
Even if she respected him now, that did not erase the rudeness she had shown Duke moments earlier.
But she did not apologize for it.
- “There is no need to apologize for an attack that poses no threat.”
As Duke had said in the past, he did not mind her rudeness in the slightest.
He had gone beyond simply not caring about her lethal techniques; he was also forgiving her rudeness.
Since an unwarranted apology would itself be another form of rudeness, she decided to replace an apology with respect.
“Here I come!”
Thud!
When she stomped down hard, a white aura began to rise from her body.
Beyond that white aura streaked sporadically with black, it seemed as though a white tiger were roaring.
Duke praised her.
“A well-controlled spirit possession!”
Spirit possession.
It was a shamanic technique that could be called the ultimate technique of the beastkin tribes.
It was a technique that dramatically increased one’s physical abilities by accepting the aura of the animal one represented.
However, she had been unable to use spirit possession when she was in the second tier.
‘Because I didn’t know restraint back then.’
Accepting the white tiger’s power meant being consumed by the beast’s instincts to the same extent, so she had been able to accept only ten percent of it.
But at this moment, she had achieved tremendous growth, accepting as much as seventy percent.
Boom!
With a sound like the air exploding, she charged at Duke.
Right before reaching Duke, she stomped down hard and thrust out her palm.
Once again, Duke knocked her attack aside with his left hand.
However, unlike before, her body did not stagger after cutting through empty air.
Duke praised her once more.
“Excellent restraint.”
Until the battle immediately before this, she had been unable to control her own body.
I’m the best.
There’s no way my powerful skill can be stopped, and there’s no way anyone can evade my fast fists.
Because she had harbored such arrogant thoughts, there had been no restraint in her attacks.
Thus, whenever an attack missed, the momentum made her body stagger, and even a light push was enough to break her posture.
But she was no longer like that.
She was carefully regulating her strength, taking into account that Duke might block her or evade her attacks.
To use a fighting game as an analogy···
‘She’s refraining from moves with heavy recovery.’
And she was engaging in a battle of wits without looking down on her opponent.
In this brief span of time, she had gained an insight beyond anything Duke had imagined.
‘Excellent.’
As both a warrior and a newbie.
To show her his respect, Duke began wrapping magic around his left hand.
‘Directly using telekinesis on her would be too harsh for a third-tier opponent.’
Instead, he applied it to the strap of her gauntlet.
She resisted Duke’s telekinesis and knocked it away with mana.
But the fact that her attention had been drawn to the strap was exactly what Duke had intended.
He did not miss that tiny opening and wrapped his left arm around her fully extended arm.
Applying a wrestling technique, Duke once again sent her body flying.
This time, however, she used a cat’s flexibility to right herself in midair and aimed for the tie of Duke’s cloak.
“Hm.”
Duke released her arm while making a sound that had no particular meaning but somehow seemed cool.
Then he moved out of reach of her right hand as she tried to grab the cloak’s tie.
Thrown into the air, Ari immediately performed a breakfall like a cat and landed on both feet.
“That was a sharp attack.”
“Thank you.”
She immediately charged at him again.
This time, she lowered her body until she could touch the ground and swept her leg across the ground, aiming for Duke’s ankle.
‘How will you deal with this?’
Before she became a slave, opponents seeing this technique for the first time during a duel had been sent flying by it.
It looked like a tackle, but if that were all it was, there would be no need to touch the ground.
This attack forced a one-sided psychological battle upon her opponent.
If they braced their lower body to withstand the tackle, she would kick her leg up while keeping her hands on the ground and aim for their chin,
if they lifted one leg to evade it, she could change its path from clockwise to counterclockwise using only the strength of her wrists and tackle an opponent who was standing on one foot.
If they ducked to block with their hands, she would retract her leg, stand up, and kick their chin with her knee.
It was a technique unique to feline beastkin, who could make acrobatic movements that ignored momentum.
It was difficult to use often because it placed a strain on the wrists, but there was no better technique for catching an opponent off guard.
However, she did not think Duke would fall for this technique easily.
And, as if to meet her expectations(?), Duke dealt with the technique in a way he had never experienced before.
He planted his foot precisely on top of her rapidly sweeping leg and stopped it.
Just like trapping a rolling ball.
“Wow.”
She, too, was spellbound and filled with admiration.
It was theoretically possible, but no one had managed to do it until now.
Duke could have stomped on her ankle, but he did not and let her go.
“It’s the <Tiger King’s Pride> school.”
“You know it?”
“I’ve encountered that school before. It was troublesome.”
“How good am I?”
“You’re among the top handful of people from that school I’ve met.”
Ari looked proud at his words.
Strictly speaking, she was his fifth such encounter, but Duke saw no reason to tell her that.
*
After that, she continued challenging Duke’s cloak.
Meanwhile, Rex, serving as the referee, marveled at their duel while never taking his eyes off their health bars.
‘It looks like it’s about to end.’
The yellow gauge beneath her green health bar was nearly empty.
It meant that her stamina was almost depleted.
‘Spirit possession consumes quite a lot of stamina.’
The effect of increasing every combat stat by five was extraordinary, but it consumed stamina rapidly.
Instead of the thirty minutes he had originally expected them to fight, her stamina had nearly run out after only five minutes.
Rex nodded, considering that he had gathered useful information before actual combat.
‘That aside, this is a little shocking.’
Rex examined Duke’s health gauge.
Even now, not a single point had been depleted from his health gauge.
He had thought that her skill, which dealt fixed damage that ignored defense, would at least work somewhat against Duke.
He had merely assumed that Duke’s absurdly high HP and natural regeneration would make the damage negligible.
But in reality, Duke was not merely allowing himself to be hit; his overwhelming skill had not permitted her even one strike.
‘Even 0 times 100 is still 0···’
No matter how much fixed damage she could deal, it meant nothing if she dealt zero damage.
Having discovered the weakness—or rather, the non-weakness—of her skill, Rex recorded these facts in her character window.
<Ari>======
- Extreme stamina consumption when using spirit possession: Physical conditioning required.
- If the Technique stat difference is too large, the skill becomes meaningless: Technique training required.
==========
For now, there was only Ari, but given that he might end up commanding many people later, taking notes was essential.
From his extensive gaming experience, he knew that if he did not write these things down, he would inevitably make mistakes later.
After finishing his notes on Ari, Rex added a note about Duke.
- <Victory>
No matter how he thought about it, it was simply a victory button.
Around the time Rex finished his notes, new text appeared above Ari’s health bar.
<Exhausted>
‘Just as I thought. So this is what happens.’
Ari plopped down, panting heavily.
“Let’s stop here.”
“Haa··· huff···”
Unlike Ari, who was pouring sweat like a waterfall and looked ready to die, Duke was perfectly calm.
Duke’s stamina displayed on Rex’s window had decreased by only one percent as well.
And so the duel ended with Ari’s defeat by decision due to exhaustion.
*
After the duel ended, Duke walked away without even sparing exhausted Ari a glance.
‘I can’t give her even the slightest chance to trigger a flag.’
Providing her with water and a towel was entirely Rex’s responsibility.
With an emotional wall built into his voice, Duke gave his overall assessment of her technique.
“The power in your fists is strong, your speed is fast, and your technique is highly polished. However, you have yet to let go of your fixation on the past.”
With her brain already barely functioning from a lack of oxygen, Ari managed to answer.
“I’m sorry··· huff···”
“Hm.”
Duke turned his back on her and headed toward the training yard’s exit.
The way he built a wall between them with such thoroughness was more than enough to cause others to misunderstand.
‘He must be dissatisfied.’
Especially because she wanted Duke to acknowledge her as his disciple, she lowered her head in disappointment.
At that moment, Duke stopped as he was leaving the training yard.
“I clearly saw your potential. I look forward to your growth.”
Still facing away from her, Duke showed her the broken tie of his cloak.
“I’ll mend my cloak, so guard Lord Rex in the meantime.”
As Duke left the training yard, Ari bowed her head toward him.
“Thank you!”
She repeatedly bowed toward Duke’s back as he left the training yard.
.
.
.
And at that same moment, Duke.
‘I’ll be able to sleep soundly tonight.’
He had met a newbie and even delivered the lines he had wanted to say.
Duke thought it had been the best day imaginable.