Chapter 34: Volume 2 - CH 17

“Now, let’s get this rematch started!”

Once more, Kyle pointed at the two demons. A deep scar could be seen on the male demon’s face, and one of his horns was still missing. The female demon stood one step behind the man, showing a somewhat conflicted expression.

“As always, you humans show no end to your arrogance…” The male demon spoke with a cold tone.

“Not too energetic today? We can move the day if you’re not feeling well.” Kyle joked around, but the male demon did not react at all.

“No, let us begin right away. I will make sure your insolent mouth never opens again.”

Seeing that reaction, Kyle suddenly changed his tone.

“…Since you’ll be fighting me one-on-one, I have a bit of a proposition.”

“Would you like to bring more numbers? I don’t mind, it’ll just raise the numbers of corpses.”

“No, I want to change the location. It’s a bit too narrow here for two battles.” Kyle looked around, as he argued.

It was a somewhat large space, but as they were underground, they couldn’t go all out.

“Whichever is fine with me. Do as you please.” The male demon didn’t think much and simply responded.

This was actually somewhat of a test by Kyle, but as expected, he agreed immediately.

“Are you sure?” The female demon seemed a bit worried.

“Where we fight doesn’t matter.”

“However, he may choose an advantageous location…”

“That doesn’t change much. No matter what a puny human may come up with, as long as I don’t let down my guard like before, he can’t hurt me.” There, the male demon gently touched his scar and the location of the missing horn, as his expression distorted in anger for a moment.

He was clearly much more calm than compared to three days ago, but his hate for humans was showing even more now. The difference in strength was all too clear. He knew that Kyle managed to get a sneak attack on him only because he relaxed his guard for a brief moment.

“Then, follow me. It’s right over there………I’m counting on you.” Kyle stepped away from the group, taking the male demon with him.

He gave Lieze and Urza a worried expression, but Seran simply said “Go get him, tiger.”

“Huh? You’ll stay here?”

Seeing Shildonia staying behind with the girls, Seran gave a doubtful question.

“Yeah, master told me to stay with you all.”

As her projection acting as a physical entity would grow weaker the further she was away from Kyle, she would naturally stick at this side at almost all times, but her knowledge against demons might come in handy.

“Well, I’ve been supplied with enough mana, so as long as I don’t move too much, I should be fine.” She munched on some sweets, explaining.

“You’re still eating…?”

Seeing off Kyle and the male demon, the female demon let out a sigh, and faced Seran.

“Now then…if I win, I will get that sword, but…does that mean I have to fight you as well?” She spoke like she didn’t care too much.

“No, I’m just the observer here, so only those two will be fighting.” Seran shook his head. “If those two lose, I’ll give you the Holy Sword, I promise.” Seran spoke with a serious tone.

Of course, he had no intentions of doing so, and was ready to protect the sword no matter what it would cost, but he didn’t show any signs of that.

“I see…I don’t like the idea of this, but it’s for the Holy Sword, so I will play around with you.” She faced Lieze and Urza, declaring this. “However, carelessness is the greatest enemy, as they say. I’ve realized that you are indeed quite strong through our previous battle, so I will be taking you seriously today.” She said, and gently ran her hand along the cheek that was previously grazed by Lieze’s gauntlet. “If you don’t want to die, surrender…Or, be ready to lose your limbs.” The female demon’s muscles on her shoulders moved upwards, as her long fingers on both hands turned into sharp claws.

Following that, cracks appeared on the ground where she stood, like her weight had suddenly grown. Her hair stood on end, and her previously green eyes now looked like they’re burning up with a strong red. At the same time, both Lieze and Urza felt shivers running down her backs. It felt like the temperature in this underground area had dropped drastically.

“…This is bad, alright.” Shildonia grumbled—her cheeks full of sweets. “That’s a type of strengthening technique amongst close-combat specialized demons, which heightens all your abilities.”

“She’s stronger? Even more than before? That’s a bit unexpected,” Seran commented.

“Indeed…just think of it as strengthening your physical abilities…”

“I see…But if they manage to make it past the first attack, they should have a chance.” Seran said, but prepared himself so that he could intercept whenever necessary.

Despite feeling that the female demon had grown stronger even on her own skin, Lieze stepped forward. Urza stood a bit further back, summoning the Fire Spirit Salamander.

“Let’s go…”

The first one to move—or rather, before Lieze and Urza could even attempt anything—was the demon after all. With speed most likely deemed impossible to achieve by human standards, she arrived in front of Lieze, slashing at her face using her claws.

“Urk!” Lieze narrowly managed to intercept that.

Without the high-quality gauntlets covering her forearms, the battle probably would have been over in an instant. However, the female demon continued her attacks to the point of not even allowing Lieze to breathe. Defending against this relentlessly fast onslaught of attacks, Lieze slowly but steadily was pushed backwards.

“Salamander!”

At Urza’s order, Salamander fired off an orb of fire from its mouth. Any normal flame attack like that would wrap up Lieze in the blast as well. It had already reached the female demon, in fact. However, even as she attacked Lieze, the demon easily dodged the ball of fire that approached her from her side. However, the fact that she actively dodged it showed that she would definitely receive damage if the attack connected. On top of that, in the time she spent evading, she couldn’t attack.

As a support attack, Salamander fired off more fire orbs, which allowed Lieze to start her own counterattack. The female demon seemed to see this constant fire of fire orbs as meddlesome, which is why she stopped attacking Lieze, and instead put her focus on Urza next. If Urza were to be defeated, the spirit would lose its master, and disappear. That was the basic strategy when fighting a spirit user. With ease, the female demon jumped over Salamander, and approached Urza. However, that is something Urza had predicted already.

“Gnome!”

Together with Urza’s voice, the Earth Spirit Gnome appeared, acting as her shield. The female demon’s claws reached Urza, but stopped right in front of her.

“What?!”

Not expecting that, the female demon let out a shocked voice. Summoning and controlling two spirits at the same time needs an insane amount of focus. She probably didn’t expect Urza to be a spirit user on such a level. At the same, the Gnome attempted to capture the female demon. She somehow managed to escape that grasp and took her distance, but the Gnome grabbed one of her arms.

“Urk! Let go!”

No matter how much she fought, even a demon could not hope to break free from the Gnome’s grasp. Naturally, Lieze did not miss that opportunity. She moved forward, and attacked the demon from behind. However, right before her fist would have connected, she suddenly stopped, and bent backwards. She attempted to avoid the backwards kick fired off by the demon, but it grazed her face, and she was blown away by the sheer impact.

“Kya!”

Even though she was barely grazed, it was plenty of an impact that made her consciousness blank out for a moment. Using that opening, the female demon broke the arm of the Gnome that was holding her, and moved away. So did Urza, and so that she had another shield, Lieze and the two spirits moved in front of her.

“I’m shocked…to think she’d be this strong…” Lieze muttered, as she spit out some blood.

“Yeah…you can say that again.” Urza’s expression ended up pale, her breathing out of control.

They seemed to be exhausted mentally, and also when it came to mana consumption.

“But…”

“It’s not unwinnable, alright.”

They showed invincible grins, and the battle restarted. Lieze and the Gnome acted as the frontline, whereas the Salamander continued firing fire obs at mid-range. Urza stood in the back, giving orders to her spirits and analyzing the situation of the battle. The demon seemed unable to even focus on Urza in the back, as she decided to start with the frontline, attacking the Gnome and Lieze. Those two responded accordingly, slowly starting to push back the demon. Lieze used the Gnome as her shield, and the Gnome did its duty perfectly, which is why Lieze barely suffered any injuries.

However, this resulted in the Gnome suffering the most damage, already ⅓ of its body having broken apart. Even if he was a spirit, if it took too much damage, its physical body would break apart. As it was the sturdy Earth Spirit, he wouldn’t crumble that easily, but at this rate, it was just a matter of time. Soon enough, Lieze would have to take care of defense on her own, which would burden her even more.

“I guess they’re being pushed back now?” Shildonia said, sounding oddly worried.

That being said, since she kept eating sweets even beyond the utmost necessity of restoring mana, she didn’t sound serious at all.

“Yeah, no problem at all.” Seran answered calmly, but his fingers and legs were twitching ever so slightly.

“Can’t calm down?”

“Just watching doesn’t fit my personality. But, if I intervene now, I’ll reap the punishments later.”

“However, it seems like you’ll be forced to eventually?”

“Not wrong…but it’s hard since things are going perfectly according to our plan.” Seran said, holding his head.

“You’ve held out for quite some time, but this is the end!” The female demon swung her hand at Lieze with full power. The Gnome tried to protect her, but couldn’t keep up because of its severe injuries.

“Urk!”

So far, Lieze somewhat managed to hold her ground against an attack, but that one was too much even for her. Following that, the female demon jumped and evaded the fire orb, and headed for Lieze once again. However, the Gnome now managed to block her off.

“That won’t work anymore!”

The Gnome was already close to breaking apart, so when the demon saw that it would take just one more attack, she immediately decided to break through and aim for Lieze to finish her off. However, the Gnome went to its utmost limit in being a shield, closing off the demon’s view, which was used by Lieze as an opening.

“Now!” Urza gave an order, and Lieze fired off a roundhouse kick directly onto the Golem’s back.

“Haaaa!”

Lieze put as much strength into that kick as possible, piercing through the abdomen of the Gnome, shooting out the rock that acted as the Gnome’s stomach forwards.

“Wha!?”

As the Gnome had blocked off the demon’s view, she could not even guess what Lieze was doing, so this attack completely took her by surprise. Even with her demonic nature and abilities, she could not react, and the rock slammed into her own abdomen. Through the hole that opened up in the center of the Gnome, Lieze’s gaze met the demon’s, who was groaning in pain.

“Another one!”

Lieze used that opening to put everything into her jab, and hammered the rock even deeper into the demon’s abdomen.

“Guha!?”

The rock broke into several small pieces, and being hit by its full force, the female demon took the shape of a sideways V, blown off. With that, the Gnome must have reached its limit, as it lost shape, the rocks crumbling to the ground. Naturally, its physical body may have been destroyed, but as it was a spirit to begin with, Urza would be able to summon it again after a set amount of time.

“Well done…thank you.” Urza deeply thanked her Earth Spirit.

At the same time, the female demon barely managed to keep herself standing, but on quivering legs.

“Y-You!”

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Lieze tried to follow up with another attack, but the female demon just screamed ‘Stop your foolish arrogance!’, and tried to counter that. However, Lieze perfectly read that.

“Your attacks! You only go for one-hit KOs!” Lieze easily evaded that attack, and rammed another fist into the same spot of the female demon as before.

“The counter attack after eating a hit is the exact same as when you punched me before…No matter how fast or strong it may be, if it’s an attack I can read, I’m not scared at all!”

“Gah…”

Normally, a demon greatly surpassed a member of humanfolk when it comes to strength and endurance, but taking three hits of Lieze’s full power must have hurt quite a lot. She coughed up blood, holding her stomach in agony, staggered backwards, and finally collapsed. There, the Salamander delivered the final blow with a giant flame attack, engulfing the entire demon’s body.

“I guess…it worked out.” Urza walked next to Lieze, both of them gasping for air.

Separating that stomach part of the Gnome so that Lieze could kick it took a lot of mental strength and mana. On top of that, she used up all of her mana for the Salamander’s final attack.

“Yes, those were some great three hits there.”

Lieze was riddled with wounds all over, her body assaulted with severe exhaustion. However, their expressions were fresh, and relieved. After all, the combination they had practiced this entire time worked out perfectly in the real deal. Even so, they were still careful. Surely, the demon must have suffered a lot of damage from that combination of attacks. Finally, the flames faded, and the female demon was standing there. She had one hand on her stomach, the injury she had suffered, with blood dripping from her mouth, and she had burns all over her body. Her focus must have run out, as the color of her eyes went back to normal, and her claws disappeared.

Her body was riddled in wounds, but her eyes were more than alive. She emitted strong hostility as she looked at Lieze and Urza.

“Why…I’m clearly much stronger than you two, so how did I…” She was gasping for air, forcing out a weak voice.

“There’s many reasons, but the biggest one is that your movement is so dull. You’re too honest, you could say.”

“Right. Before, when you were holding back against us, your movement was much more smooth than now.”

“What…did you say?”

The female demon seemingly didn’t expect to even be given an answer, but lost her words after hearing the two’s opinions.

“Also, this was your first time participating in a battle with your life on the line, right? And, I bet you never even killed anybody, yeah?”

“Wha…!”

Lieze must have hit bullseye, as the female demon went silent.

“Basically, you’re inexperienced, can’t properly react to anything unexpected, and you get far too emotional way too quickly…Finally, as we have gone through a fight for our lives before, we naturally had the upper hand.” Urza looked down at the demon.

“Also…you’re a bit too diligent, and I bet people often tell you that you’re stiff, yeah?” Lieze said.

“Ugh!”

That assumption seemed to be spot-on, as the female demon once again grit her teeth in anger.

“What a foolish fellow you are…your fighting style reveals your personality. Especially you, you’re far too easy to read.” Urza nodded, agreeing.

The female demon once again showed shock and disbelief, shaking violently, whereas Lieze and Urza smiled at each other. They seemed relaxed and confident, but that just shows how happy they were that their strategy had worked out this smoothly. It was a narrow victory where one misstep could have spelled their immediate deaths. However, together with a bit of a bluff, their calm attitude did not break apart. Even if the female demon was lacking experience, it wasn’t enough of a weakness to completely control the fight. If anything, they needed to show her that nothing of that was a fluke, but rather the natural turn of events, showing mental strength and confidence. That being said, the female demon may have suffered more severe injuries, but Lieze and Urza weren’t exactly unscathed, and about as exhausted. Right now, they were about equal.

“Alright…Let’s continue, shall we!”

“Yeah, this is where the real deal starts.”

Lieze and Urza showed motivation, ready to resume the fight. However…

“No, it’s my loss.” The female demon raised her head, announcing her defeat.

““Huh?””

Lieze and Urza looked at each other, baffled and confused.

“Um…so basically, you’re admitting your defeat?”

“That’s right, I lost. I surrender. I don’t intend on fighting any more than this.” The female demon calmly declared.

“Hey now, she gave up…?” Seran muttered, unable to process what had just happened.

“Impossible…” Even Shildonia’s eyes opened wide in shock.

Amidst all the experience she had gathered, she never saw a demon surrendering this easily to a member of humanfolk.

“Before, I simply let down my guard, so I figured that if I fought seriously, there is no way I would lose. However, having seen your determination or what you call it, I realized that I was lacking something. And, as I am at risk of dying in this battle, I won’t fight anymore.” The female demon blatantly explained the reason as to why she would surrender. “However, don’t get the wrong idea. I am not scared of dying. The Demon Lord-sama has ordered me to return alive no matter what, so I can’t die here…Even so, simply surrendering to humans like this brings me great shame. It tears me apart, without a doubt.”

It became clear that the Demon Lord’s orders are absolute, no matter how much it may taint a demon’s honor and pride.

“Still, what an irony. After telling you to surrender if you wanted to live, I ended up the one who would run to avoid death…” She smiled with a self-deprecating smile. “Now that I’ve surrendered, what will you do with me?”

Hearing the demon’s question, Lieze and Urza were finally brought back to reality.

“What…I don’t know, what should we do?”

“Even if you ask me that…I don’t know?”

The two looked at each other, visibly confused. Clearly, they worked through several strategies in order to come out victorious and alive, but neither of them would have imagined that their battle would end with the enemy surrendering.

“A-Attacking the enemy who just surrendered doesn’t feel too right with me either…” Urza was quite confident before, but now she was deeply shaken.

“Even if she surrendered, you can’t just let a demon go running away.” Seran scratched his head, sounding conflicted.

“Well yeah, you’d probably make her go down on her knees, begging for forgiveness as you laugh to your heart’s content, as you cut her down, but…I don’t want to cast away my humanity like that.”

“I won’t make her do that while laughing!”

That being the case, he did not deny the idea of cutting her down. The group sought help at Shildonia.

“Since you won, you have the right as the winner to decide what you want to do.” Shildonia basically contributed nothing.

“Um…So, if we won’t accept you surrendering, what would you do?”

“In that case, I would try to escape to the best of my ability, and resist with all might.”

Oddly enough, the female demon now seemed much more calm than Lieze and Urza themselves.

“I have to make it back home no matter what, so I can’t afford to be captured here…If you were to request something from me, I shall abide to the best of my ability.”

“Request…” Lieze held her head, taken by surprise because of the demon’s statement.

“However, anything I could provide you…That reminds me, you wished for information, did you not? The demons that are currently active in the humanfolk territory under the Demon Lord-sama’s orders are just us two. There may be other demons invading your territory at this point, but I do not have any grasp on that.”

“Oh yeah, that was one of our conditions.”

“You completely forgot…”

Kyle’s desire to learn information from the demons was pretty much just a pretext to get everyone motivated. To the point they simply forgot about it right now.

“Is there nothing else? Well…if you two were men, I wouldn’t have minded sharing a bed with you.”

“Pffft!”

“Wha…S-Sharing a bed with us!?”

With this random proposition, both Lieze and Urza blushed furiously

“Ah, if you’re okay with a woman like me, I don’t mind. Of course, I can also do it with that man if he comes back alive and victorious…” Although the chance for that is pretty slim—she added in her mind.

“No! You can’t do that! Don’t worry about it!”

“T-That’s right! It’s enough!”

Lieze and Urza both strongly denied that generosity (?).

“I see, then I’ll escape now.”

“Ah…”

Of course, the two girls could have attacked the demon, as there was no need to keep any promises with her. However, that would dirty the effort and intentions they had when fighting her. Although it was naive, it was the correct decision in the eyes of the two.

“That reminds me…I haven’t asked for your names yet. Could you tell me?”

Right before leaving the tunnel, the female demon turned around, asking the two.

“It’s Lieze.”

“Urza.”

The two answered.

“Ah, my name is…” Seran was about to name himself, but the demon just ignored him.

“I see, I will remember you. My name is Yuriga. I’d be happy if you remembered me.”

The demon, Yuriga, calmly named herself.

“Oh, you’re going to give us your name…Well, it’s different from a spirit user’s true name, but demons still treasure their names, so it’s rare for a demon to give their names to humans…Or rather, I never heard about that before.” Shildonia spoke, sounding surprised.

“You know a lot…Though I have to say, I always assumed humans were this powerful merely for their sheer numbers, but I was wrong…I have to admit, you clearly were stronger than me in this battle.”

Being praised by a demon of all people, both Lieze and Urza showed meek smiles, but it didn’t feel bad for sure. With the battle over, the tense atmosphere slowly broke apart. Yuriga smiled, and turned her back towards them.

At the same time, Seran moved like he was driven by madness. Since it was at immeasurable speeds, not even Lieze and Urza could react. He immediately sped past them, aiming for Yuriga’s back—and drew his sword.

“If you’d excuse me. I still haven’t gotten to try out my sword.”

With that voice, Yuriga turned around, and found the sharp glittering blade of the Holy Sword—something she had been chasing all this time—now aimed at her. Unable to react because of her exhaustion, she could only look at the approaching doom.

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