Black Iron Magician

The noisy onlookers become quiet. They must have sensed the start of the mock battle between the two. Even though they are much farther away than me and Chinatsu, probably for safety reasons, their expressions are tense. They are watching while holding their breaths.

「Canon, hold my sword.」

「Y-Yes! I will hold it with care!」

He was there, huh. It seems that he has finished carrying Muno-kun. Nell, who’s dressed in plain clothes, handed him the sword. I’m sure he should have passed out while blowing bubbles, though. He sure is quick to revive.

「Nell-san, are you not going to use your sword?」

「I said that I won’t fight back, right? Then, I don’t need the sword.」

「Ah, no. I heard from Shishō that your job is a swordsman, so I thought that you would use the sword to defend against attacks.」

「That’s not a problem. Haruna, stop worrying about other people and just do your best for now. If it looks too terrible, I won’t take you to the expedition, you know?」

「T-That’s a problem! I-I’ll do my best!」

「Good. Then, I will confirm the rules for the last time. You can move around as much as you want and attack me with weapons and magic, but I won’t fight back and I won’t move even a step from this place. Let’s see… if you can hit me even once or if you can make me acknowledge your ability, I’ll give you a passing mark. There’s no time limit and it’s over when you give up. I will accept it If you have any other conditions, but how about this?」

「No, it’s more than enough, thank you for your consideration. I think that’s fine.」

It became a troublesome rule. Although she claims that she won’t fight back, the difficulty of landing a hit on Nell is not comparable to the ash kobold boss or Satou. On the other hand, I can’t imagine Haru giving up. I have a feeling that this is going to be a long drawn out battle.

「Then, come at me. Let’s see what you can do.」

Nell said so with her arms folded and her feet firmly stood on the ground. According to her previous remarks, she’s no longer allowed to even lift her feet off the ground.

「Let’s do our best!」

Haru, on the other hand, begins to cast magic after bowing at the start of the mock battle. This chanting… Diese, huh. Normally, it is a magic that creates black smoke around the user and uses it as a smokescreen. However, Haru creates the smoke around Nell instead of around herself.

「Haruna is using magic …!」

「Well duh, her job is a magician after all. She basically throws it, though.」

「Throw?」

「Well, I think you will understand it sooner or later. More importantly, she sure came up with that, huh. Diese is a minor magic that creates black smoke with a limited range and is harmless to the human body. But, that black smoke is darkness itself and light cannot pass through. If you got surrounded like that, your vision will be blocked. Normally, you would only need to move a little from there, but now Nell can’t even move because she forbade it herself. Setting aside the damage, I’m sure it’s difficult to defend or dodge an attack in that state. Furthermore…」

「Furthermore?」

Haru started setting another magic. It’s the new magic that she just learned yesterday, Fume Fog, which creates a poisonous fog.

「The magic that Haru just cast creates a wide range of poisonous fog. The color is purple, it totally gives you the impression of it being poisonous. Still, Nell can’t tell since she can’t see her surroundings. It’s the perfect magic for a prolonged battle. You can’t see your surroundings and you can’t even breathe, that’s a pretty nasty strategy.」

「Um, Deris-san. The purple fog is approaching this way, though…」

「… Can you handle it?」

「Ah, yes! I can!」

Chinatsu said so and began to apply a light magic barrier in a hurry. I’m sure the poison fog won’t reach the place of the onlookers, but as an emergency medical team, I won’t move from this position. Still, since she has a katana-like sword on her waist, I thought that her job is a swordsman. It seems that her job is the same as Haru, a magician, or maybe a priest. She’s a reverse pattern of Nell who learns magic as a swordsman.

「Deris-san, I’ve completed the barrier.」

「Alright, it seems okay. Oh, I think Haru is going to attack now.」

「At last.」

Haru is still keeping her distance. I’m not sure if the experience she has gained so far and her sharpened senses are telling her not to approach carelessly, or maybe she’s just being cautious. Even so, her eyes are in the usual mode. And then, Haru took out the iron ball, which Gan-san made from the black magic stone yesterday, from the pouch.

「She’s focused on long-range attacks at first, huh.」

「That black thing is a ball, right? Is that magic?」

「… Well, that’s more or less fall into the magic category. Probably.」

「Which one is it…?」

I also want to ask that. Haru tampers the iron ball’s weight with Gravi and applies poison with Dawth, which is stronger than Adva’s poison mud. To onlookers, it looks like she’s polishing a black ball. However, that’s already a physical weapon dyed with magic. What’s more, this time it’s a custom-made weapon, not a stone you can find lying around. She also has raised her dark magic level and magic power, so the ball right now has a tremendous weight and deadly poison. Something terrible might happen if someone other than Haru were to touch that ball.

Well, the insanely dangerous weapon is completed and now it’s time to throw it. With the unlimited time, Haru calmly swings her arm that’s holding the iron ball.

―――― Gulp.

In the midst of the growing tension, you could hear the sound of swallowing spit from someone among the onlookers. It was the same moment that Haru’s magic ball was thrown, which included the Hand-to-Hand Combat skill and the correction effect from the Throwing skill.

The magic (physical), that has slaughtered many fierce men, rushed through the poisonous fog. As if being sucked in, it’s going towards Nell, which was closed in the darkness. As everyone’s eyes were glued to the thrown magic ball, Haru moved to the next bombardment position.

In order to attack incessantly, there is only a small amount of time to move. Taking the iron ball out of the pouch, Haru holds it while running to the next position. Then, she throws it sideways without taking much time like the first throw. The ball wasn’t that fast this time, but it showed a strange change. It was turning at a sharp angle before disappearing into the darkness.

Haru’s attack hasn’t stopped yet. Until her MP or the iron balls run out, she keeps throwing her magic while running in circles with the darkness in the center. Unlike when she was dealing with Satou and his friends at the Ash Rope mansion, the current Haru has a good throwing control where she can hit the target even at a somewhat unreasonable posture. The attacks that entered Diese’s smoke while running freely, sometimes in a straight line, and sometimes showed a change, were incredible.

「Still, that’s not enough to land a hit on Nell, huh.」

「Eh?」

Haru, who was running around, stopped. Looking at her MP, she still has the leeway. Then, it seems that she has run out of iron balls.

She’s breathing heavily. Well, that could be expected since she was moving around that much. Running as fast as she could while throwing iron balls made her exhausted.

「Haruna, you used interesting magic there. I thought it would be bad if I melt them, so I caught them with my bare hands. Still, it resonated inside me.」

As soon as Nell’s voice came from the darkness, an explosion sound resounded. And then, Haru’s magic, the black smoke and poisonous fog, was blown away and scattered. The one who emerged from the scattered darkness was Nell, with her arms still folded, standing there as if nothing had happened. No, her emotion has changed. She’s smiling, showing that she’s in a good mood.

「Yeah, it seems that you can deal with level 5 monsters. Good job, you passed!」

At the feet of the satisfied Nell, there was a pile of iron balls thrown by Haru.

「Eh, ah, yes…」

Haru didn’t seem to be convinced, but it was fortuitous that it ended sooner than expected.