Karen rubbed the shoulder Kojiro had struck. Maybe because this was a snow-and-ice stage, she could almost feel warmth in it, even though it had been touched by a Duel Avatar rather than a human hand. But her opponent refused to let even that brief moment of sentimentality stand.
"Where do you think you’re spacing out, huh?!"
The thug kicked off the ground with his massively developed arms and shot into the air. In an instant, he soared above Karen, then the moment he landed, he slammed both arms down into the ground.
KRAAANG!!!
With a cracking roar that sounded like heavy construction machinery, the ice-covered earth shattered to pieces. As ice and snow sprayed in all directions, the thug crouched at the center of the blast and thought to himself.
So there’s no impact. Did she dodge it? Then where did she go?
At that moment, from a blind spot hidden by the falling snow, a whip made of water lashed out. The whip struck the thug squarely across the face.
"Tch! Over there!"
Hit clean in the face by the surprise attack, the thug snatched up a chunk of broken ice from the ground and hurled it toward the direction the whip had come from with all his might. The enormous chunk of ice, nearly human-sized, came flying at Karen like a baseball. But Karen moved with the grace of a figure skater, gliding over the icy ground and evading the attack with ease.
The secret was the thin coating of water spread across the soles of her feet. That water was synergizing with the snow-and-ice stage’s extreme cold to create a slick surface that helped her move. Karen sprinted across the frozen ground as if she were wearing actual skates. Even while doing so, she did not forget to taunt the thug chasing after her.
"A snow-and-ice attribute, huh? You’re really lucky. It’s the one I’m best at."
"Doesn’t matter. The moment I get my hands on you, you’re done for!"
Fuming to the top of his head, the thug chased after Karen while smashing the ice fragments left lying around the field to build up his finisher gauge. Karen, for her part, used her superior mobility to calmly rack up hits, whipping water and firing water bullets. But perhaps because he was a blue-type avatar, his defenses were tough to crack. The thug ignored most of her attacks as if they were nothing more than an annoyance and kept closing in on her.
**
Among the PK group moving in a loose encirclement around Kojiro, a dark-colored avatar opened his mouth.
"There was a guy like you once. Got ambushed, didn’t learn his lesson, and kept acting cocky. Heh heh."
"Ah, that guy? He was huge as a mountain, and in the end he was crying and begging us to spare him, wasn’t he?"
"Man, he was seriously hilarious. I thought I was gonna die laughing."
The PKers, who had been chattering among themselves with no one asking them to as if trying to intimidate Kojiro, gradually began to radiate a vicious aura. But that aura was nothing like the clear fighting spirit one normally felt in a duel.
It was a low, filthy sadism that enjoyed oppressing the weak from the standpoint of the strong. That sticky, unpleasant malice poured off the three-man gang. Kojiro shrugged off that disgusting pressure by taking off the haori he had been wearing. Then he asked in a light voice,
"You know, don’t you ever think something’s off when the other guy stays calm in a situation like this? Like maybe you should be careful because he might have something up his sleeve?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Even if you can’t see the avatar name, you’re still this clueless?"
Apparently irritated by Kojiro’s complete lack of tension, the gray avatar swung the greatsword he was holding in a threatening arc and said,
"Forget it. Let’s just start by cutting off his arms and legs. Don’t kill him too fast, though. We need to show him to that bitch from earlier."
Even after that savage remark, Kojiro didn’t care in the slightest. He held out his hand and said,
"Equip, [Monohoshizao]."
At once, a deep blue Japanese sword appeared in Kojiro’s hand. It was five shaku long, about 150 centimeters, and had the unmistakable presence of a masterpiece forged with utmost care by a renowned smith. And despite its beauty, it carried a razor-sharp edge that looked as though it could cleave steel in two.
Only then did the three PKers realize he was no ordinary opponent, and each of them took up a stance of their own.
"Don’t get scared! There’s only one of him. We just hunt him like we always do, surround him and—"
Just then, the red avatar, who had been staring intently at Kojiro from the start, let out a scream and then spoke in a tiny, strangled voice.
"Wait a second! Blue samurai clothes and a long sword? No way... no fucking way...?"
"What? What’s wrong? You know him?"
At the gray avatar’s question, the red avatar jerked and spat out a single word.
"Swallow swordsman...!"
The PKers doubted their own ears.
"I told you already. You guys are way too clueless."
Before long, all three PKers had gone pale as dirt and were backing away weakly. Even so, Kojiro announced with a bright smile,
"Now then, let’s start by cutting off the arms and legs."
**
After darting around the thug like a game of tag for quite some time, Karen calmly analyzed the situation.
His HP is about sixty percent. Mine is seventy. I have the advantage, but I still don’t have enough damage output if this keeps up.
Despite the one-level gap, Karen was putting up a surprisingly good fight against the thug. That was because she had realized his avatar specialized in close combat and was making full use of her superior range.
But as expected of a blue-type avatar, even if it had gone rotten, it was not easy to break through his defenses. As Karen wondered whether she should use something more daring, the thug suddenly put on a relaxed air and said to her,
"Heh. You said you came here to avenge that pink rabbit bitch, right?"
Don’t get angry. You knew from the start that he’d try to provoke you like this. Karen told herself that in an effort to hold back the heat rising in her chest. But just as she was trying hard to stay calm, the thug’s next words shattered her composure.
"That girl was pretty impressive too. Her legs were fast as hell. She kept finding openings and running around everywhere like a rabbit. I almost really lost her, you know? Heh heh. You wanna know what I did after I caught her? First I grabbed those two legs that gave me so much trouble and ripped them right off—"
Karen felt like her head was boiling. She wanted nothing more than to smash that yapping mouth shut right this instant.
"...Shut up."
"Then I threw her on the ground and told her to try running again. Said I’d let her live if she made it to the portal somehow. Heh heh heh, man, you should’ve seen how desperately she crawled. It was priceless~"
Snap.
The thread of reason Karen had barely been holding onto broke.
"Shut up, you piece of shit! [Hydro Cannon]!"
With Karen’s clear finisher call, part of the water flowing around her body separated and formed a massive water bullet in front of her. Then the spinning water bullet surged toward the thug with a menacing force.
Even though it was an attack incomparable to the weak water shots she had been firing until now, the thug stood rooted to the spot and didn’t budge. Instead, he used his own finisher.
"Muscle Hypertrophy Amor!"
With the finisher call, a change came over the thug’s avatar. With an unpleasant crackling sound, bundles like strands of noodles sprouted all over the body of the gorilla-like avatar. The bundles then wrapped around every part of his body, making his already inflated frame even larger. It was a visual that vaguely called to mind a certain green monster from an American comic.
At first glance it was grotesque, but anyone with a background in human anatomy would have gotten the impression that it resembled the structure of human muscles. More precisely, it was an exoskeleton made of carbon nanotubes and silicon fibers, the sort commonly used in artificial muscle.
The instant Karen’s water bullet slammed directly into the thug’s muscle armor, his body actually surged forward. Bracing himself with both arms wrapped in artificial muscle bundles, he kicked off the ground and hurled his body forward like a sumo wrestler charging an opponent. Even after taking Karen’s water bullet head-on, the thug did not lose momentum and came barreling toward her for nearly twenty meters.
This was unexpected enough that Karen’s reaction lagged. Then the thug’s fist smashed into her. She blocked with a water shield at the last possible instant, but she was still sent flying dozens of meters and slammed into an ice wall.
"Ghk!"
Driven into the ice wall back-first, Karen let out a strangled breath.
I can’t get any strength into my arms or legs. Am I stunned?
Even in pain, Karen accurately assessed her condition and quickly got up, rolling away. Another attack was already coming, and the blow had just shaved off more than forty percent of her HP.
The thug apparently judged this to be his chance and pressed the attack even harder. Wearing the muscle armor over his body, he rampaged with speed far beyond what he had shown before. He was nothing short of a tank.
Karen had no time to mount a proper counterattack and could only focus on dodging. Thinking she was already a trapped prey, the thug boasted with a self-satisfied air.
"My Duel Avatar was made to be strong. Strong, and only strong! It’s basically built around that one thing. No long-range attacks, no special attacks, just a super close-range type that boosts strength and durability. That’s what this body is."
Karen, her mind hazy with pain, let the thug’s annoying voice go in one ear and out the other. Is this the end? After all this, I still couldn’t get my revenge? Just as such negative thoughts began to dominate her mind, she remembered the advice Kojiro had given her at the cafe.
"Karen, your Duel Avatar, [Aqua Current], is specialized in special attacks and utility using flowing water, even if its direct physical attack power is weak. So you always have to fight calmly and coolly. If you let your anger take over like this, you won’t get revenge—you’ll put yourself in danger too."
So this is where advice really shines, when you learn it through pain. Karen once again took Kojiro’s words, which she had dismissed so lightly, to heart. What had he said after that?
"Among the things a warrior should cultivate, there’s a phrase called ‘clear mirror, still water.’ In simple terms, it means a mind that is clear and calm, without cloudiness, impurity, or wavering. Isn’t that exactly right for you right now? Your avatar name is ‘water,’ after all."
Remembering Kojiro’s easy smile after that, Karen let out a small snort. It felt like some kind of curse that had been hanging over her had finally been lifted. The anger boiling in her head had not disappeared. But the rage that had been surging like magma had cooled and turned as hard as ice. Cold anger. It was far from the clear mirror, still water Kojiro had spoken of, but for Karen, it was enough.
Karen looked at the still-talking thug with a chilling smile and said,
"Why are you so long-winded? Are those bulging muscles just for show? Must be pretty proud of yourself for bullying a girl weaker than you."
"...I’m gonna crush you. Right after I smash that mouth of yours!"
Apparently Karen’s taunt had landed, because the thug twisted his face in rage and took up his stance again. The same posture as when he first charged in, bracing both arms downward and lifting his lower body. The muscles rippling all over him looked like a bull just before it charged a matador. But to Karen, those muscles looked noticeably smaller and looser than before.
This is the turning point. That was what Karen thought. Then the thug shattered the ice beneath him and charged at her. Karen’s response, once the opportunity presented itself, was swift.
Instead of dodging, Karen expelled the flowing water that made up her body in all directions. The fine water particles froze instantly in the snow-and-ice stage’s extreme cold. Then the frozen vapor became tiny ice crystals and scattered sunlight in every direction.
"[Ice Prisms]!"
A natural phenomenon that sometimes occurs in extremely cold regions, commonly called diamond dust. Of course, as a mere natural phenomenon, it didn’t have the flashbang-like effect Karen was using now, but Brain Burst was still a game, no matter how real it felt. The intense light reflected in all directions stole the thug’s vision.
"Tch, cheap tricks!"
But what did it matter if his sight was taken? His avatar had no way to deal direct damage to her anyway. The thug didn’t care and threw his whole body toward the direction Karen had been in. But what greeted him as he charged toward the spot where Karen had just been standing was—
"Agh!"
Sharp ice spikes jutting up from the ground.
Charging in like a dump truck, the thug was impaled by the ice stakes with all that momentum behind him. Like an insect pinned for display, he flailed in midair with his body pierced through by the ice spears. But no matter how hard he struggled to escape, the ice stakes firmly lodged in his body did not budge.
"Aaaagh! What is this—"
No matter how loudly the thug shouted and tried to break free, the ice spikes driven through every part of his body and the tangled artificial muscles only made it harder for him to move. Soon the thug went limp and muttered in disbelief.
"This... how the hell..."
There was no way. I was winning, wasn’t I? Why are there ice spikes here? Did that bitch prepare this? The ice spikes that had pierced his abdomen made it hard to get any strength into his body, but as the thug struggled with all his might, a cold voice flew toward him.
"Useless."
Karen’s appearance in the thug’s vision was completely different from before.
Frost had formed over the water armor covering her body, and the flowing water that had made up Karen’s entire form had turned into shards of ice. If she had looked like an avatar made of water before, now she looked like an avatar made of ice.
"That form is...?"
"My finisher, [Phase Transition]. Type: Ice."
At those words, the thug finally realized that Karen had been the one who made these ice spikes, and he screamed in a fit of rage.
"So it was you who made this ice?! Let me out right now!"
"Am I an idiot? You think I’d let you out just because you asked?"
After cruelly mocking him, Karen drove ice spikes into the thug’s hands and feet as he continued to struggle.
"Aaaagh!"
The pain in the Unlimited Neutral Field was close enough to real-world pain that the thug, pierced all over by ice spikes, screamed at the top of his lungs as the delayed agony hit him. Even so, Karen acted as if she couldn’t hear his cries and kept pinning down different parts of his body with more ice spikes. By the time she stopped, the thug was left trembling, unable even to breathe properly.
"How... how did you do this?"
Eventually, once he had grown used to the pain, the thug asked. He still looked like he couldn’t understand why he had lost.
"From the very beginning."
"From the beginning?"
"Yes. From the moment I first dove into the Unlimited Neutral Field. From the moment I realized the field attribute was a snow-and-ice stage. And from the moment I realized my opponent was you. I’d been preparing this plan since then."
Karen pointed to the water flowing around her and said,
"My ability, [Theory of Purity], isn’t just the power to manipulate flowing water. I can separate water from my armor, control its shape to a certain extent, and even create ice or high-temperature steam like this.
And with the field advantage of a snow-and-ice attribute, I can do things like this too."
As she spoke, a tiny icicle was already caught in Karen’s hand.
"Then if you add the field advantage of a snow-and-ice attribute, this becomes possible too."
The small icicle lifted from Karen’s hand was wrapped in streams of ice flowing out of the water armor—no, the ice-water armor—and before long it had transformed into a sharp ice spike as thick as an adult’s forearm. Then, with a flick of Karen’s hand, it shot off with a menacing force and embedded itself in one of the ice walls set up around the Unlimited Neutral Field. The thug, staring blankly at the sight, said in a strained voice,
"If you had an attack skill that strong, why didn’t you use it from the start? You could’ve fought way more advantageously..."
"Obviously, to make you let your guard down."
Karen looked at the thug with contempt and said,
"You’ve only ever fought opponents weaker than yourself, so of course you don’t know even basic tactics. Or did you even level up through duels in the first place? The matchup between your avatar and your opponent’s, the field attribute advantage, the stat difference caused by level. In a duel, the only thing you need to consider isn’t just the HP gauges. In that respect, you were pathetic. Just an idiot who couldn’t control the power he had and swung it around blindly."
Then Karen concluded,
"In short, you’re weak."
Grrrk—
"Don’t act all high and mighty! You bitch! I’ll tear you apart right now!"
The thug ground his teeth and screamed in a frenzy, but the ice spikes piercing his body did not move an inch. In truth, the duel between Karen and the thug had been in Karen’s hands from beginning to end.
From the moment she confirmed that the field attribute was a snow-and-ice stage, Karen had been waiting for an opening like this. So even during the fight with the thug, she kept taunting him whenever she could, narrowing his focus and using only relatively weak techniques to make him careless. Though she had briefly fallen for his provocation and taken a hit, that only made it easier to lure him into the trap for good.
Finally, she had blocked his vision with her finisher and turned his own power against him. If Kojiro had been here, he would have applauded after seeing Karen fight. That was how clever her play had been. But even after ending up like this, the thug still had some nerve left.
"Tch! Enjoy yourself while you can. By now your partner’s probably crawling around like a dog under my guys."
"Is that so? Are you sure about that?"
"Hah! So you’re spinning some happy little fantasy because you lucked out and beat me? Those guys are the best hunting party in the Accelerated World. There’s no way they’d lose."
"Then want to make a bet? I can’t imagine my partner losing."
Even against the thug’s rough tone, Karen’s expression did not change. That attitude of hers made the thug shout almost in a rage,
"You’ll be on the ground crawling just like him soon enough!"
Then a third voice cut in.
"What? It’s already over?"
The owner of that voice was not the thug who had just been spouting curses. And of course, it wasn’t the gang the thug had been waiting for either. It was Kojiro, who had appeared without warning. He looked almost exactly the same as before the fight. The only difference was the object in his hand. His usual treasured sword, Monohoshizao, was still slung across his back, while something round was being held in his grasp.
Karen was startled by Kojiro’s sudden appearance, but the thug’s gaze was drawn to what he was holding. It was the head of the avatar who had effectively been leading their gang. In other words, the gray avatar’s head.
"Hiiiii! Chopper!"
"Ah, was this avatar named Chopper?"
"Eh? Uh... eh?"
Kojiro casually tossed the gray avatar’s head into the snow. The head rolled across the ground like a ball, then quickly dissolved into countless ribbon-like lights and vanished into the air. The thug could only stand there with his mouth hanging open, repeating strange sounds that were neither words nor groans. The one who put an end to that scene was Karen, who had been standing quietly all along.
"Looks like I won the bet after all."
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