In the slowed time caused by the Mental Acceleration effect.
Sounds that would normally have spread out short and sharp as ‘Kaang!’ and ‘Chaeng!’ stretched out long, emphasizing a metallic trembling resonance.
Though not comparable to the whip’s Sonic Boom, this sound was also quite loud.
If the battle continued for long, it would inevitably attract others.
‘I’d better finish it while there’s still stamina left to run.’
Even if I continued the fight to the end, I would lose anyway.
Despite avoiding direct clashes as much as possible and focusing on deflecting attacks, the grip of my hand holding the dagger had begun to ache.
‘Above all, my attacks won’t work on Vigdis at all!’
No matter how much I reinforced the dagger with Aether, the strength behind my swings was weak, so I couldn’t even scratch Vigdis’s skin, enhanced by the [Iron-Blooded Steel Body] skill.
If I were swinging the whip at supersonic speed, I could land effective blows, but that wasn’t relevant right now.
‘I never intended to beat Vigdis in a fight anyway…!’
I pretended to be out of breath, breathing heavily, and slowly backed away.
Vigdis’s sword swings grew faster and stronger accordingly.
She must have judged that with just a little more pressure, she could seize the advantage.
Chaaaaaang!
After defending a few more attacks, just as the dagger in my right hand met Vigdis’s sword—
I subtly let go of the dagger, pretending my strength had given out.
The dagger was deflected by her sword and flew far away, and Vigdis’s eyes lit up at that moment.
‘She must think her chance has finally come.’
As if to prove my guess right, Vigdis shifted her sword to one hand and reached the other hand toward my bag.
I twisted my upper body to avoid her reach, then deliberately fell to the ground, pretending to lose my balance.
Vigdis lowered her posture to snatch the contents of my bag.
Up to here, it went according to my plan.
But an unexpected small accident occurred.
I had intended to fall in a simple stumble, but I stepped on a fallen leaf and slipped, falling completely backward.
Perhaps deciding she needed to fully restrain me so I couldn’t get up, Vigdis immediately took a full mount position.
To put it plainly in Korean, she sat on top of my abdomen.
In that state, she unzipped the bag I was wearing—
ziiip—then, “Ot…!”
She let out a belated exclamation, as if she had only now realized that her posture was somewhat awkward.
I thought that if she felt embarrassed about her current position, she would normally scurry away, but—
Maybe the surprise had overloaded her thought circuits, leaving her frozen.
Vigdis stiffened like a stone in that position.
‘This is… a little awkward… but anyway, looking at the results, it worked out.’
Originally, I had planned to sit facing each other and wait for Vigdis to be distracted by the ‘miss’ capsules in my bag, but—
Looking at the big picture, the situation wasn’t much different from my plan.
So I decided to act to achieve my goal before it was too late.
“Uh…? Ahh!”
When I opened my bag and pulled out the two capsules inside, Vigdis let out that sound.
I pushed her away and quickly got up to run.
In the process, the contents of my wide-open bag spilled out everywhere, but since they were all ‘miss’ capsules, it didn’t matter.
But Vigdis mistook them for treasures.
Instead of chasing me, she was busy gathering the fallen capsules.
‘I wonder how she’ll react when she opens them later…’
Thanks to that, I could escape leisurely, but I felt quite guilty.
When I felt I had gotten far enough,
“Was that… too cowardly and petty…?”
I stopped in place, catching my breath, and asked my wise baby dragon.
Yor scrawled three words on the whiteboard and then gave a thumbs up.
「Victory world cold」
It meant that the world of competition is inherently cold.
My actions were not a problem at all, and rather, I did very well.
My baby dragon is always on my side, so it’s likely unconditional support rather than an objective evaluation.
But it helped enough to shake off my guilty conscience.
“Since I’ve already brought them, I can’t go back and return them… well, I can, but not really. Anyway, um… let’s just do what I need to do.”
“Meow meow.”
Though the possibility was close to zero, maybe Vigdis had also tried to bait me with ‘miss’ capsules.
I decided to check the contents before hiding the notes.
「Potato」
「Tomato」
They were real treasure notes.
It was as expected, but confirming it made me sigh involuntarily.
How naive could she be?
I wondered how Vigdis planned to survive this harsh world.
‘…Enough worrying about others. Let’s hide them quickly before anyone comes.’
With that thought, I tucked one treasure note between my boot and thigh, and hid the other in the same spot on the opposite leg.
That was when a familiar voice came from behind.
“Karbaldr! There you are?”
The voice was full of delight, but I wasn’t happy at all.
Because that voice belonged to the person I most wanted to avoid right now.
And on top of that…
“Why is Yor digging the ground with a dagger alone? And with two capsules next to him.”
“LF?!”
As you can tell from his words, the biggest problem was that I hadn’t completely hidden the empty capsules yet.
“Judging by the lack of dirt on the capsules, you didn’t just dig them up… Were you trying to bury them? So there are treasure notes inside? Then why is Yor doing that alone? Karbaldr, there’s no way you’d be slacking off and making Yor work. What were you doing, huh?”
The protagonist of another novel bombarded me with questions today, showing off his persistence.
Since Reysir caught me, I couldn’t leave the empty capsules here and run.
No, running itself was impossible.
‘Reysir’s Agility stat I checked at the library last time was over 100. Even if I use [Encourage], [Encourage], and [Elation] all together, he’d catch me in no time.’
I thought about ordering Yor to take the empty capsules and flee into the sky, then run alone while Reysir chased Yor, but—
The image of my baby dragon being struck by Reysir’s lightning and crashing down flashed in my mind, so I couldn’t do that.
‘Of course, Yor has high attribute resistance as a dragon, so there might not be much damage…’
But going up into the sky risks being targeted by Fjodra and her familiar, Lausa.
Attacks made of wind are judged as physical force, so no matter how high Yor’s attribute resistance is, it’s meaningless.
If Yor fled through the trees instead of the sky, he’d be caught by Reysir soon enough, but—
At least he could buy some time.
So right now, this was the best plan, but…
‘Even if it’s training, I don’t want to use the one I treasure most as bait.’
Still, I couldn’t very well tell Reysir to keep watching while I buried the empty capsules.
“Yor, hand me the capsules.”
“Nyah?! Yaong…!”
“It’s fine. Hurry.”
Yor hesitated, but—
When I urged him again, he came to me with a reluctant expression and handed over the empty capsules.
Even as I took them and put them in my bag, zipping it closed, the protagonist of another novel just stood watching quietly.
‘He’s confident that whether I have them or not, he can take them from me.’
His composure as a strong person felt especially irritating today.
If only it had been before I hid the treasure notes.
I could have shown Reysir an empty bag, said ‘this is all the treasure I have,’ handed over the capsule, and hurried to search again.
‘Even if I said that while pulling out the treasure notes hidden on both thighs, it wouldn’t work…’
If I had known I’d end up in this situation, I wouldn’t have taken the papers out to hide on my body.
Regret washed over me, but it was too late.
Besides, just handing over the treasure notes wouldn’t fit the purpose of the training.
And it felt unfair to give away what I had obtained while pretending to be tsundere and ignoring my guilty conscience.
I rationalized like that, and with the spirit of crying over spilled milk, I pulled out my whip.
“You want to fight me? As expected of you, Karbaldr.”
The protagonist of another novel smiled contentedly, pulling a spear from his inventory and spinning it.
The motion was light, as if he were warming up.
Whoosh—, whoosh—.
The sound of it cutting through the air was heavy and threatening.
‘Is he really planning to subdue me and take all the treasure notes I worked two hours to collect? Pret gave me one treasure note just like that…’
This thought crossed my mind, but saying it out loud would be as good as revealing I had more than three treasures.
I swallowed my resentment, reactivated [Encourage] and [Encourage] whose durations were almost up, and—
Swung my whip, also activating [Elation].
Since I planned to use Yor’s help this time, I gave him the two stat-boosting buffs as well.
“Nyaaaaaah!!”
Maybe Yor thought the situation was his fault for not hiding the empty capsules quickly enough?
As soon as I finished activating all the buff skills and prepared for battle, Yor let out a battle cry and fired multiple Aether arrows at Reysir.
It seemed he also used [Dragon Fear], because Reysir’s shoulder flinched slightly.
But of course—
The original protagonist didn’t just stand there and take the arrows.
With a perfectly calm expression, he twirled his spear, which was enveloped in golden Aether, lightly deflecting all the attacks—
“Ah, so this is what it feels like? I really do go ‘ow’!”
He even joked around like that, giggling.
It seemed I wasn’t the only one annoyed by his attitude, as Yor let out a ‘Kyaong!’ sound in anger.
But even the baby dragon’s genuine rage couldn’t scare the original protagonist.
“Karbaldr. When you make a face like that, and Yor goes ‘Kyaong!’ behind you, it really… heh…”
“……”
“……”
Yor and I attacked simultaneously with one mind and one heart.
The whip swung toward the protagonist of another novel, and dozens of arrows flew.
And the result…
Well, it was exactly what you, dear readers, expected.
Sadly, Yor’s and my attacks achieved nothing.
Reysir dodged the whip by leaping to the side, then spun his spear again to deflect the sky-blue arrows.
And he did that not while standing still, but while taking a step forward to close the distance.