Legend

Vihera had her gauntlets on both hands and magic weapons on her feet. Her body was dressed in clothes that could only be described as sensational, like that of a dancer or prostitute, with multiple layers of transparent cloth.

She was both a warrior and a dancer, but despite being dressed in gear that differed greatly to her combat style, there was no sense of incongruity in her appearance.

She was neither a warrior, a dancer, nor a prostitute……but Vihera. That was the strange sense Rei got from her.

Of course, the equipment that covered her body wasn’t something just designed to make others let their guard down.

They were all powerful magic items.

Her gauntlets had the abilit to form claws from magic power while her footwear could create blades from her heels.

Contrary to their appearance, the light clothes she wore had great defense against magic attacks.

Those who didn’t understand Vihera’s skills would only look down at her, but those who knew would sense danger from her magic items.

Wearing such equipment, Vihera waited for Rei as she bathed in the moonlight pouring down.

If Elena represented the day and the sun, Vihera would be the symbol of the night and the moon.

Rei spoke up as he faced Vihera.

「Did I keep you waiting?」

「No. Waiting for the other party is one of the ways to enjoy a rendezvous, is it not? Doesn’t it make you feel like a maiden when you wait, imagining a moment with the person you’re waiting for?」

Vihera asked with a smile.

She might have had a smile on her lips, but her eyes showed a desire for struggle that couldn’t be hidden.

Elena, who usually would have reacted to Vihera’s used of the word ‘rendezvous’, quietly retreted along with Set and Yellow without saying a word.

On Vihera’s side, Byune, who was next to her, silently retreated as well.

It was as if they were showing that the main characters in this place were Rei and Vihera and not themselves.

Under the moonlight, Rei and Vihera faced each other at a distance of 5m.

A man and a woman facing each other in a park at night. If it were just that, some people might have thought of it as a meeting between lovers.

However, it would be unreasonable to call them lovers considering they were both equipped as if they were going to enter the dungeon.

That said, some people might still believe you if you said they were an adventurer couple.

「Now then, what do you think? ……Should we start soon?」

「Yes, yes. Of course. You sure do talk fast. That’s part of the……no, let’s talk about that later. Right now, let’s enjoy the struggle as much as we can.」

Halfway through her words, Vihera shook her head slightly as she held out her fists.

In an instant, claws shaped by magic power grew out from the back of her hands. At the same time, blades appeared from her heel.

「It looks like you’re all ready to go.」

Looking at Vihera, Rei also took the Death Scythe out of the Misty Ring as he held it with both hands.

It was a posture he was already accustomed to.

However, the one before Rei now was undoubtedly stronger than any monster he had fought in the dungeon.

「Then……let’s get started! Please accpet my feelings!」

Along with those words, Vihera dashed forward as she closed the gap.

For Vihera, who specialised in close quarters combat, the first wall when fighting Rei, who used the long shafted Death Scythe, was how to close the distance.

Naturally, Rei also knew that, so he didn’t let Vihera get close to him as he started to attack from the range he ccould.

「Terrain Manipulation.」

Rei slammed the Death Scythe into the ground as he said that.

In an instant, the ground in a 10m radius around Rei sank by 10cm.

10cm……only 10cm. But for Vihera, who was trying to close the distance by dashing across the ground, it was an unexpected angle of attack.

For a moment, she was felt lost as her foot, which should have touched the ground, fell 10cm short.

It was only a moment, but from Rei’s perspective, it was enough for him to attack.

「HAAAAAAAH-!」

Rei poured magic power into the Death Scythe as he swung it.

Vihera noticed the blade, which could kill her, swing in and immediately pushed against the ground to halt her charge.

The blade swung through.

Had Vihera ignored the change in terrain under her feet and continued charging towards Rei, the blade would probably have struck her.

It was an instinctive response based on instinct as as battle maniac.

But……even that response was expected for Rei.

Although it had only been a short period of time, he had still fought many battles with Vihera. Because of that, he didn’t think he could stop her with just this.

As a result, after striking the air with the blade of the Death Scythe, Rei used his momentum to activate a different skill as he spun around on the spot.

「Flying Slash!」

A slash flew out.

Vihera dodged the slash, that had been thrown out horizontally instead of vertically, by bending her waist.

The slash passed just a few cm over her head.

Without seeing the slash pass her by completely, she dashed forward again towards Rei.

The movements of her supple body were reminiscent of a large feline carnivore.

Seeing that, Rei got the feeling he was fighting against Set, even though their bodies were completely different shapes and sizes.

「HAAAAH-!」

She swung her fist out from a fair distance away.

It was an attack that normally wouldn’t reach, but in Vihera’s case, her claws extended further out that her fists.

Her claws headed for the Dragon Robe covering Rei’s body……

「As if I’d let you!」

Flicking his wrist that was holding the shaft of the Death Scythe, Rei swung the shaft upwards as the butt of the shaft flew out.

But Vihera had taken even that into account as she moved.

The momentary gap created as Rei flicked the shaft up.

That gap was the opportunity that Vihera was aiming for.

Forcibly killing her moment with extended fist, Vihera took a step forward as she drew her arm back.

Slipping inside Rei’s range, the range of the Death Scythe.

Further out was the Death Scythe’s attack range, but inside was her attack range.

The fists she wielded were the weapons she had absolute confidence in.

Vihera had heard that Rei’s Dragon Robe was highly resistant to slashing attacks. But at the same time, while the slashing damage could be blocked, the impact itself could not.

Recognising this, she punched out as far as she could so that the impact would pass through Rei’s defenses and into his body……but the next moment, Rei’s voice echoed out into the darkened park.

「Magic Shield!」

With his words, a shield of light appeared.

Naturally, the shield hadn’t fully formed by the time Vihera’s punch struck Rei’s body. However, the shield still absorbed most of the power behind Vihera’s fist before disappearing like mist.

At the same time, since the magic shield hadn’t fully formed, the remaning impact was driven into Rei’s body.

「Guh-!」

Rei was knocked back about 5m as he groaned.

Seeing that, Vihera grinned.

That was where she got her pleasure from.

It might have looked like Rei was knocked back by her attakc, but in actual fact, he had made a small jump as her fist hit him, killing most of the impact.

……Even so, Vihera’s rare fighting talent was manifested here as Rei’s body still took a hit through his Dragon Robes.

Although he was injured from the impact that knocked him back, he still managed to regain his balance as scraped the ground with his hands and feet.

However, when he turned to look in the direction he had just been hit from, all he saw was Vihera’s heel, swinging down towards his head.

The moonlight made her legs look a luscious white, but Rei didn’t have any time to pay attention to that as he pushed against the ground and leapt to the side.

Vihera’s heel struck the place Rei had been just a moment ago, causing the ground to cave in a few cm radially due to the power of her strike.

Jumping to the side, Rei thrust out his left hand, which wasn’t holding the Death Scythe, into the ground and used the momentum to flip his body up into the air. Activating the Shoes of Sleipnir to push against the air, he closed the distance to Vihera.

「I won’t let you do as you please!」

Shouting out, Rei flicked his wrist and turned the shaft towards Vihera as he activated a skill.

「Penetrate!」

Wind clung to the area around the Death Scythe’s shaft, increasing its penetrating power.

Vihera must have been aware of the danger of the attack, as Rei had used it in his battle against Oricule. But……even so, she didn’t run as she met the Death Scythe’s shaft flying towards her body.

Her counter of choice was a kick.

As soon as the shaft reached her abdomen, Vihera fell backwards into a bridge position as she kicked the shaft up from below.

Normally, doing that would injuries due to the wind surrounding the shaft. However, the thin clothes she wore had the effect of reducing magic damage.

After all, even after getting directly hit by Pree’s Thunder Cage, her skin hadn’t showed even the slightest scratch.

Of course, she need to use magic power for her clothes to activate its effect, but she wasn’t directly hit by the Death Scythe, just the wind.

As a result, she succeded in blocking any damage with minimal magic power.

The kick she unleashed did exactly what she intended and succeed in sending the Death Scythe high into the sky.

If there was any miscalulation that Vihera had maide, it was that Rei didn’t even flinch as he Death Scythe was blown away……in fact, he didn’t even care.

The fact that Vihera’s movements stopped for a moment after kicking away the 100kg Death Scythe might also have something to do with it.

Not caring for the Death Scythe, which had been knocked away……Rei threw a fist at Vihera’s abdomen at high speed.

「KYAH-!」

Her thin clothing only provided defense against magic attack and had almost no defensive power against physical attacks. Recieving a direct hit to her abdomen, Vihera was sent flying with a scream.

Even so, as she frowned in pain, she twisted her body in mid air to recover her posture, probably an unconscious action based on her combat instincts.

Just like Rei earlier, she scraped the ground with both her hands and feet to slow herself down and looked around as she coughed from the hit she had taken.

Luckily, Rei didn’t seem to follow up like Vihera earlier and instead caught the Death Scythe as it fell back down.

「Keho, seriously……don’t you know what it means to hurt a woman?」

While patting her abdomen, which had bruised from the impact of Rei’s attack under her thin clothes, she spun out some words towards Rei.

「I hope you don’t say such things to tohers. If someone doesn’t know what’s going on, they’ll definitely misunderstand.」

In an ordinary person heard that a woman had been hurt, their first thought would be to take it as she had been phsyically assaulted. And since it was Vihera saying this, with her exceptional good looks and attention grabbing body, it was unlikely for her words to be taken any other way.

「Fufu~, I don’t mind if it’s Rei? ……Well, it’s only a matter of time before the guards come here, so let’s get this over with. Honestly, I would have wanted to enjoy this battle forever.」

Vihera muttered with deep regret.

After all, there had been a conflict between the Silva and Marschel families just the day before. The guards were all nervous regardless of where and when and the residents of Exil were equally nervous about any signs of fighting.

They might be residents of a labyrinth city, but it was only natural that not all the residents actaully entered the dungeon.

「That’s right. ……Then, let’s make this the final strike.」

Hearing Rei’s words, despite the injury to her abdoment, Vihera stood up and faced Rei as if she didn’t feel any pain.

In response, Rei held out his Death Scythe with both hands as they faced each other.

The moonlight poured down as if Rei and Vihera were the only two actors on stage, even as the high humidity of summer heated the surroundings.

Facing each other down, the only person that existed in each of their gazes was the other.

In such a state, they stared each other down……before the moment arrived.

What was the reason? Was it the faint shadow of moonlight that poured down? Or was it the hustle and bustle of the city night that seemed so far, far away.

Anyway, for whatever reason, Rei and Vihera dashed forward at the same time at a speed that left their shadows behind, trying to bring each other into their attack range……and the next moment, they both stopped.

Rei’s Death Scythe was thrust straight at Vihera’s neck while the tip of the claws that extended out from her hands failed to reach Rei.

Even if Vihera tried to swing her claws, the blade of the Death Scythe would definitely take her head off first. With that, victory and defeat were clear to anyone’s eyes.

At that point, they stopped attacking and just stared at each other.

Rei at Vihera. Vihera at Rei.

As if they were the only two people in the world.

It was like the same as before, but the atmosphere was completely different.

In such a situation, Vihera eventually spoke.

「It’s my loss……」

「Yeah. I won.」

A short exchange of words.

However, there was absolutely no resentment in the words that leaked out of Vihera’s mouth. On the contrary, she seemed quite happy to accept her own defeat.

「……Rei, you have beaten me. And completely so. ……Now, I’m yours.」

When she said those words, Rei tried to ask what she meant……as Vihera close his lips with hers.