Chapter 19 (1/2)

Chapter 19 – Battle, and Limit＊

The sound of something being flicked rang out in concert with something flying Luru’s way.

Upon catching it with a small SMACK, Luru found that it was cool to the touch.

Luru opened his fist and looked at it.

It was a coin representative of the currency that circulated throughout the Kingdom of Lezaad, the Lezaadian Silver Coin.

The front was of the profile of the queen that ruled the first generation of the nation, but on the back was carved the sacred beast said to protect it, the unicorn.

Why was this thrown at Luru just now?

The reason was something that only the man standing a few paces in front of him, Patrick, knew.

When the night had broken, and the morning was still misty, without anybody knowing, Luru and Patrick headed out of their house with wooden sword in hand.

The purpose was, of course, for the real duel that was promised yesterday.

As long as they were fighting seriously as promised, there was initially the problem of location, but in the end they decided to hold the battle in the forest a little distance from the village, in a clearing close to the ancient demon ruin.

Almost n.o.body came here, and additionally, even if there was a little damage, n.o.body would be troubled by it.

Though it was ‘fighting seriously’, the two of them made the distinction of not burning up the forest, and set their ability to a level where they could be careful about that.

That’s why they probably wouldn’t destroy the ecology of the forest either.

And then, when the two of them were facing each other, Patrick tossed the coin mentioned just now.

“…What’s this?”

As Luru tilted his head in confusion, Patrick spoke.

“I was thinking that it might be good as a starting signal, you see. Throw that up, and the moment it lands, our match begins, I was thinking.”

“…? Then couldn’t you have thrown it, Dad[/Tousan]?”

When Luru said that, Patrick replied,

“If I’m the one who throws it up, isn’t it possible that the fight will start without you being completely prepared? In the end, I just want to fight against your true strength… When you’re completely ready, Luru, you can throw that coin up. …Me? I’m ready whenever.”

Was that because he felt he still had room for composure, or was it bragging that because he was a swordsman, he was constantly ready for battle?

However, Luru decided to accept his proposal.

It was the truth that he was a little more worried about his control of mana than when he was a demon, and the time lag needed to use that mana and reinforce his body was not something he could ignore, once the opponent was somebody strong.

If the start signal were left to Patrick, then there was certainly the possibility that the battle would begin before he had prepared for battle, or circulated mana through his entire body.

That’s why to Luru, it was a convenient proposal.

Like that, Luru began to leisurely circulate his own mana through his body.

From his well of deep mana, he pulled out as much as he could, and after compressing it, pa.s.sed it through his entire body.

More than when he was born, more than seven years ago, it was now much easier to pa.s.s mana through his body and compared to the past, it was something he could do comfortably.

However, as expected, once he compared it to his time as a demon, the response was slow, or perhaps you could say it was like the out-of-place feeling of forcefully pumping water into a hose that was blocked somewhere.

He didn’t know if it was because of the limits of the human body, or if he had gotten the technique wrong somewhere, but he felt that he had to make sure to take care about this so that this reality wouldn’t hold him back when he was truly cornered.

Watching Luru do this, Patrick’s eyes became sharp, and then he changed a little bit from how he was up until now.

Up until they had come here too, Patrick had been shocked upon seeing some of Luru’s body reinforcement when he used his mana, but in the end, that was nothing more than one portion of Luru’s entire mana.

This time, was different.

He poured into his body as much mana as he possible could, and reinforced himself with it after all.

Even now, Patrick’s cool-looking expression hadn’t faltered, but if you looked closely you could see cold sweat hanging from his brow.

He could probably feel Luru’s power.

However, the fact that it ended only with a cold sweat, instead showed Patrick’s strength of will.

Had a normal human been there, they probably would have fainted within just a few seconds.

That level of abnormal concentration of mana was now worn around Luru’s body.

“…Luru. To think you were this…”

At the words Patrick squeezed out of his throat, Luru smiled.

“Actually, I’m still not at my best yet.”

“…? You can’t be saying that you still aren’t being serious?”

“That’s not it. That’s not it, but… Right now there’s still some power that I can’t control, you see.”

Were he in the body of the demon king then he could completely grasp both his mana and his physical strength, so he could perfectly control it.

However, the fact that this wasn’t true right now was not something that Patrick had any way of knowing.

“I don’t really understand, but… if you’re being serious, that’s fine. …Luru, is it fine to start soon?”

If you looked at Patrick, you could see that he was itching to begin moving even now.

If you looked at Luru, you could see that his desire for battle was excited.

The confidence to start at any time, and defend against any attack was br.i.m.m.i.n.g from his body.

Seeing Patrick like this, because Luru had confirmed that he had plenty of mana spread through his body, he nodded.

“…Yeah. I guess… it’s time to start.”

-PINN-

Luru flicked the coin he was grasping into the air.

Spinning in the air with the queen and unicorn interchanging as the coin went up, it stopped for a moment at the peak of its flight, and then was guided by gravity as it accelerated to the ground.

And then…

-DONN-

The moment it could be heard colliding with the ground, in that instant, the forms of Luru and Patrick blurred.

Together with the sound of something hard colliding with each other, the trees growing in the surroundings shook from the shockwave.

Just one exchange, just one collision of their wooden swords had that much effect.

Of course, because they were wooden swords, normally they would have immediately broken.

However, the fact that the two swords that the pair freely collided with each other was even now without a scratch, and were even now continuing to grind as they locked together, was due to the pair’s close to G.o.dlike control of the magical strengthening they placed on their swords.

Were there to be even a small mistake in the flow of, or the amount of mana, a normal wooden sword would probably crack and break from the pressure of the mana it was saturated in.

However, the mana that flowed through the wooden sword continued without a break even the size of an ant, and was no longer a mere wooden sword, but something that now held enough strength to be compared to even a sword made of metal.

You wouldn’t be let off unscathed if you were hit by it.

It was a weapon that now possessed that much destructive power.

“…I’m surprised, Luru. I didn’t think that there would be so little difference between us…”

In the height of their sword-locking, Patrick said this with a grin.

“I feel the same, Dad[/Tousan]… I really do still have a long way to go, huh… I planned on finis.h.i.+ng this with a single hit, but you withstood it…”

Luru replied as such.

Honestly speaking, as long as they said they were battling seriously, Luru had planned on not easing up even a little.

He had planned to use up all of the mana that lay within him, and steal away his father’s consciousness in a single attack.

However, the reality was that that attack was stopped, and on top of that, it seemed that right now he and his father’s strength were competing against each other.

[tl: need to come back and reword once i’ve had enough sleep. basically rather than overwhelming him, instead they’re balanced-ish and are going back and forth to try and win in strength.]

The cause of this included the fact that his father was stronger than expected, but more importantly, was because Luru couldn’t draw out all of his strength.

As expected, the fact that he was now in a human body had a large effect.

Once he actually fought with somebody strong, it became obvious.

It might be dangerous if he fought the way he did as the demon king, relying on his natural born physical capabilities.

Having said that though, it seemed that he had plenty enough power to engage in close combat with the powerful human, Patrick.

In addition to that, considering that he could use large scale magecraft, he wouldn’t lose so easily.

They couldn’t just lock swords forever.

To Luru, it hadn’t been that long.

He waited for that one moment when Patrick’s concentration was upset, and took a distance, and from there immediately put power into his arms, aimed towards Patrick and stepped forwards.

It seems that Patrick had sensed the danger from Luru who after parting for an instant, immediately leapt in with a thrust.

He thought to immediately ward it off, but remembering what happened yesterday, he concluded that it would be a bad move.

Luru could attack once more even if Patrick avoided it.

To Patrick, even if he knew what move Luru would take next, he didn’t have the confidence that he would be able to deal with the abnormal power in Luru’s second attack from yesterday.

Because of that, since there was no choice, Patrick had no choice but to bet on smacking down Luru’s thrust.

Against the thrust that came at a speed that made the words ‘couldn’t be seen’ a reality, Patrick prepared in concentration to parry it downwards from the side.

However, Luru was thrusting at a speed that wouldn’t easily slow down, and even if he could do so, Patrick would probably attack him in that instant.

That’s why Luru now had no option but one.

And then, the two of them made contact.

The sound of sword colliding against sword rang out, and in the next instant, one of the swords danced through the air.

The one who won this bet, was again, Patrick.

In that instant, he was sure of his victory.

“It’s my win… -!?”

――――However, during that instant, Patrick realised that the Luru reflected in his vision did not have the eyes of somebody who had lost.

Thinking about it, it was strange.

The feeling when he robbed the wooden sword from Luru’s hands.

It was, too light.

Wasn’t it almost as though he was holding it one-handed?

So Patrick thought.

And the next moment, he noticed that there was something grasped in Luru’s hand.

That acc.u.mulation of jet-black darkness was, from its form, without a doubt the same as that of a wooden sword.

However, that black sword whose outline wavered, was clearly not something material, and was moulded from mana.

Luru’s face curved into a grin.

“Who’s win was it?”

Patrick’s sword was high overhead, and he realised that he wouldn’t be able to cope in time.

And Luru did not overlook that opening.

Luru thrust the black sword forward, and as though gouging Patrick’s gut, he advanced deeply into him.

By the time he had noticed, his consciousness was falling into darkness.

“Dad[/Tousan]… It’s, my win, huh?”

Only his son’s voice resounded in Patrick’s ears.

“Good grief… my body sure hurts.”

While muttering this, Luru walked down the road to the village, with his unconscious father on his back.

Having said that though, this speed was almost no different from an average adult’s running speed, but to Luru it was not a very fast pace.

The reason being that right now Luru was suffering from what you could call intense muscle pains throughout his body.

Perhaps it would be best to call it an aftereffect of fighting seriously, or perhaps it would be best to say it was because Patrick was stronger than Luru had expected, Luru ended up having to use several levels more mana for body reinforcement than he had normally up until now, and the result was that he was stuck with the development of muscle pain.

In fact, since he was little, he had put in great effort in order to little by little add to the amount of mana he could use in body strengthening, but even so, the body of a human was far more frail than that of the demon race’s, and each time he did this, he would feel strong pain.

To begin with, at the time, when he used half of his total output then he could fight forever without any problems, but once he started using more than that, little by little the amount of time he could fight decreased, and once he tried releasing all of his mana, roughly fifteen minutes became the limit.

He understood from experience that earnestly and consistently doing this would increase the limit, and at present he couldn’t even see a limit so it would be fine to strengthen himself forever, but even so, each time he did so he would be struck with muscle pains, so Luru was sick of it.

Once he started living as a human like this, thinking back on the level of effort of the heroes that he had fought in the past, even feelings of respect began to well up inside him.

Luru’s physical body aside, his mana was the same as when he was the demon king, so if he could stand the muscle pain of that training then it wasn’t all that tough, but the heroes should have struggled with the mana limits of a human countless times.

Towards they who had overcome even that, and came as far as defeating the demon king, Luru truly felt awe.

And Luru felt that he wanted to be able to fight like those heroes one day, but considering today’s fight with Patrick, and the condition of his overworked body, that day seemed to be still far off.

It seemed that if he had a magic artillery then he could do some rather crazy things, but once he considered that he might meet people who could Resist, even that didn’t let him feel safe.

The power or weapons to nullifying magic and magecraft, or to extremely weaken it, was something that in the past, existed in no small number, and Luru remembered this clearly.

That’s why in regards to his abilities in close-combat… Luru decided that it was something he needed to think about and work on.

Before long, they reached the village,

Visible at the entrance to the village was somebody’s standing figure.

Once he strained his eyes, it seemed that it was Iris.

It seems that she had sensed Luru and Patrick leaving the village, and was waiting there for their return.

“Welcome back, Ojisama. How was the result?”

From her way of speaking, it seems that she more or less understood what they were leaving for.

They had used quite a lot of mana, and it didn’t seem like an ancient demon’s senses would have any problem in sensing it.

Luru didn’t feel that he had any reason to hide it either, so he obediently replied.

“It was my win. It was my complete victory… is something that I can’t say, but it wasn’t a tough battle. If we redid it, there’s no mistake that I would have won. Only… he was stronger than I expected, you see.”

It seemed that these words were surprising to Iris, for her widened eyes displayed her shock.

“…It is rare for you to praise somebody you fought, Ojisama. Was his skill that great?”

“Were he born in that era, let’s see, it depends on his weapon as well, but maybe he’d be a good match for Bacchus? You probably can’t beat him, Iris…”

“A match for Father[/Otousama]… I see. I understand.”

Iris nodded.

After that, the three of them headed towards their home.

Along the way, Patrick opened his eyes.

“…Uu… where is this?”

“Dad[/Tousan], you’ve woken up?”

“Luru huh… Ahh, that’s right. I lost, huh…?”

‘My…,‘ muttered Patrick in wonder, but he sounded by no means dissatisfied.

“I thought that the world was wide, but I never thought that my first defeat in a long while would be by the hands of my son, you know?”

Whilst saying that, Patrick got down from Luru’s back.

However, it seemed that he had also overworked his body quite a bit, and even now his legs were unsteady.

“Don’t overdo it…”

Saying that, Luru supported Patrick.

Iris supported him from the other side as well.

“Oh? Iris… You noticed?”

Said Patrick, in wonder.

Iris replied.