Master’s Smile

C85 – CQC (Close-Quarter Combat)

“What’s…going on?”

Rousseld couldn’t comprehend that his fist had been crushed.

He was sure that his fist should have made contact with Master’s face.

However, it was completely disfigured to the point of it being useless, hence he could not catch up on what just happened.

What’s more, the gap between Master’s appearance and what he just did was huge.

He was smiling with absolute calmness, and in Rousseld’s opinion, he was a peculiar man with no sense of tension nor foolishness.

The fact that such a person, with a smile as if wanting to have a friendly handshake, had crushed someone’s fist which was the complete opposite of his outer emotions, made Rousseld feel very uncomfortable.

“N-No way…?”

Lucille stared at the scene in shock.

Certainly, Master was strong, as Lucille had fought with him against monsters before.

However, he still didn’t expect him to be this strong.

In fact, he had thought that Sorglos, who usually fought the monsters in his place, was stronger than Master.

Rousseld was fairly strong as he easily killed Apollo and the others, and countered Lucille’s attacks with no effort.

On the contrary, Lucille didn’t know the strength of Master, who took Rousseld’s punch as if it was nothing and destroyed his fist in the process.

“Master is reeeally strong, yes. It made my important place tingle.”

“Yeah, he’s strong-…eh?”

Lucille vaguely replied to the voice that was coming from beside him and he tilted his head in puzzlement.

Was there anyone near him right now who would be able to have a conversation with him?

Apollo and the others were already dead.

Master and Rousseld were still staring at each other in close range, albeit Master was smiling.

Then the remaining person was….

“Sorglos!?”

“…What is it?”

He hurriedly looked to his side and saw Sorglos tilting her head while looking puzzled.

As he was being stared at by Sorglos as if she wanted to say “Why are you suddenly raising your voice? Are you an idiot?” to him, Lucille fervently continued.

“Eeeehh!? I thought you got done by Rousseld….”

The only thing that remained in Lucille’s memory was Sorglos getting beaten to a pulp.

She was punctured in the stomach and was then blown away with a kick so powerful that it was easy to guess that her internal organs would have been destroyed.

More or less, she had also managed to stab her dagger into Rousseld’s heart, but it had been hopelessly overshadowed by Rousseld’s powerful strength.

“No, we told you, didn’t we? We’re not going to die from something that simple, yes.”

It was true that she was attacked and blown away as Sorglos carelessly thought that she had defeated him, but the damage that she received did not make her unable to move.

Then, why did it take so long, if not a little while, for her to come back…?.

“Huh? Sorglos, your stomach wound is….”

“Umu. It took us quite some time, yes.”

In front of Lucille’s sight was Sorglos’ abdomen, which should have been punctured.

The hole was already closed, as if nothing had happened, and a subtle blue tinge to her skin was also visible.

“Well, we can do this because we are a slime. It was easy for us to absorb the lake water and fix our body, yes.”

“Heee…eh? Slime…?”

Lucille stared at Sorglos, feeling that she had told a shocking truth

“…Slime, as in those weak monsters…”

Sorglos had also said another outrageous thing, that wasーーーshe can absorb water and plug the hole in her bodyーーー, but.what brought Lucille’s attention was her sudden remark about monsters.

It’s not that he was surprised by the fact that she was a monster.

To begin with, Sorglos had a fighting ability which seemed to deviate from that of a human.

He would also not be so surprised if he was told that Rousseld, who was stronger than him as well, was an undead type of monster.

However, the problem was Sorglos’ race, a slime.

The slimes in Lucille’s mind were one of the weakest monsters in the world.

He had often defeated them when he was a novice adventurer.

How could such a weak slime be so strong?

“Umu. If we hadn’t met Master at that time, we would have been killed easily by some adventurer, yes.”

Even Sorglos, who had a combat power that was out of this world, was not perfect from the time she was born.

She also had a time when she was a monster, crawling on the ground as a liquid blob.

However, that all changed when she met her master.

Sorglos recalled the scene of the plains with a gentle breeze blowing.

That was the first time she and Master had met.

“Oops, it’s not the time for that. We have to burn Master’s majestic figure into our eyes.”

We’ll just slowly soak in the happy memories later, even if we have to put our face on Master’s bed.

With that thought in mind, Sorglos returned her attention back to her master and Rousseld.

　◆

“……!!!”

Rousseld finally regained his consciousness when he heard blood trickling down onto the ground

“DON’T F*CK WITH ME!!!”

Rousseld was enraged by the unexpected failed counterattack of his. He then flexed his right leg like a whip and swung his leg to knock Master down.

The speed of his kick was tremendous, with the monstrous power unique to the undead whose limiters have ceased to exist.

He tried to attack Master with the kick, which was so powerful that it could blow Sorglos away in a single blow.

However, Master easily dodged his attack by bending down.

“Tch…!”

He smiled in return, releasing Rousseld’s clenched fist and proceeded to grab his arm.

Master then swung it upward, and to everyone’s surprise, Rousseld’s body was lifted into the air with ease.

“Gah…!!!”

Soon after, Master slammed his body into the ground forcefully.

A tremendous impact assaulted Rousseld’s entire body, as he was unable to take a good defensive position.

He had no sense of pain as an undead, but he was still suffering greatly from the impact that made it impossible for him to breathe.

His whole body received damage as if it shattered into pieces and he was unable to move it.

“……!?”

However, Rousseld was not given the time to recover from the damage.

Master smiled and raised his leg.

Rousseld’s past experience alerted him of an impending crisis which he couldn’t quite connect with from Master’s calm expression.

He forced his immobilized body to listen to him and jumped away from the scene with the uncanny strength of an undead.

A moment later, Master’s leg stepped down on the spot where Rousseld had been.

“GAAAAAH!?”

He somehow avoided a direct hit, but the power of Master’s stomp was still dreadful.

The ground cracked, and along with the impact, the split earth turned into debris and hit Rousseld.

One piece of debris hit him in the head, causing him to bleed.

“…I didn’t think Sorglos’ master was this strong.”

Lucille was barely able to keep up with the battle that had taken place in such a short time.

Rousseld, who should have hopelessly outmatched Master, was, on the contrary, being overwhelmed.

“…We were reminded of how wonderful Master was after the incident with Laladi-dono, but we didn’t expect him to go this far….”

And Sorglos was also astonished.

Certainly, she understood Master’s ability since she first met him.

But wouldn’t it be natural to think that her master who had been holed up in the guild headquarters for so many years (due to the members’ own desires) had lost a bit of his power?

Though, in the case of when Laladi took away Master, she was aware of him being able to suppress an ogre, which had been manipulated and considerably transformed by Yelquchira’s proudly tsundere woman, Kühling….

Rousseld, the guildmaster of Inicken didn’t know such a trifling Master had a fighting strength many times greater than that of an ogre.

“FUUUUUUUUU*CK!!!”

Rousseld bashed his knees while screaming and stood up with a tattered body.

He then glared at the master of the hateful “Salvation Army (Yelquchira)”.

“It’s true that you’re strong! But hey! I’m an undead! I can’t die or even feel pain no matter how many times you hurt me! You can get carried away as you want, but in the end, it’s me who will win! We are Inicken!! AHYAHYAHYAHYA!!!”

Rousseld continued laughing with his bloodshot eyes.

Indeed, just as he had said, the wounds he had received from Master were beginning to heal at a fast rate.

The scar that had been bleeding from his head was also quickly closing up.

It would be a tricky situation where neither of them would be able to make a decisive move.

However, if this continued, it would be the tireless Rousseld who would win in the end.

“(Well, if that happened, we’ll just kill Rousseld-dono, yes.)”

Even if the opponent was Rousseld, a special kind of undead that was immortal and had a self-healing, there was nothing she couldn’t kill, Sorglos thought.

She could just make the most powerful poison by restoring her body fluids.

A poison so deadly that it would dissolve everything the moment it adhered to someone’s body.

(TLN: Girl straight up creating acid)

Then, no matter how much he could recover, if his whole body was dissolved, it would be over his limit.

“(Now that we’ve seen enough of Master’s good looks, we think it’s time for a change, yes.)”

When Sorglos was about to step out with that thought-….

Her master nodded from understanding Rousseld’s words while crossing his arms.

Soon after, he put his hand on his own chest and exercised some sort of magic.

Master’s entire body was then momentarily enveloped in a pale, two-colored light.

“…Oi, what the hell did you do?

Rousseld, who was very wary of Master as a result of being beaten to a pulp in close combat, questioned his actions.

Yet, Master’s only response was to smile back at him.