Chapter 54: At Least It Won’t Be Boring

The corner of Verdi’s mouth lifted slightly.

‘You’re dead where you stand.’

Ah, of course, that was just talk. She meant she’d give him a light touch. She wasn’t actually going to kill him.

‘She’s smiling while cornered?’

Meanwhile, Vasquez noticed the girl he was targeting was smiling faintly.

Considering what she’d shown so far, that girl was likely a mage-type Hunter.

At close range, a mage can’t do anything against an assassin.

Their incantations take too long, and they’ve spent their time honing magic instead of building physical ability, so they can’t escape an assassin’s encirclement.

That was why Vasquez was certain. He’d found the mage’s position, and he’d reached her blind spot.

Victory! He was about to swing his dagger and declare it aloud.

CRACK!

It wasn’t the sound of flesh being cut. Instead, an unexpected sound like a spark snapping rang out. Vasquez recognized it immediately.

He’d definitely struck cleanly, and he’d felt the impact in his hand. But Verdi’s body was unharmed. As if something had protected her.

‘A Mana Shield!’

Vasquez’s eyes widened slightly. To think she could manifest a Mana Shield so transparent it was indistinguishable from the environment.

‘I was tricked.’

Vasquez’s gaze naturally turned toward the girl. Then their eyes met.

‘…A demon?’

Seeing the girl’s expression, Vasquez instinctively thought of a demon. She was smiling, but her smile was so wicked it didn’t match her age or appearance.

In truth, it did. The soul of a girl who looked to be in her mid-teens was actually that of a man approaching his thirties.

‘…Where’s that composure coming from?’

Sensing something ominous in that look, Vasquez reset his stance with renewed caution.

He’d broken her Mana Shield in one blow.

A Mana Shield is a mage’s shield and their sole means of survival. That shield had been destroyed in a single strike. She should have been shaken, so how could she possibly be smiling?

Just before he’d gone all out, Vasquez had been in a life-or-death situation, but now it should have been the girl’s turn.

Vasquez had thought over the possibility of the situation reversing several times and found nothing, but he still exercised extreme caution.

‘She might still have something left.’

He slowly circled around the girl, closing the distance bit by bit. There might be traps set up. That demonic smile only reinforced his certainty. That girl was testing him right now.

So he pulled another dagger from his coat and threw it at the girl.

WHOOSH—!

His guess was right. Just before the dagger touched the girl’s body, a pillar of flame erupted from the ground, turning the dagger to ash. She’d set a trap! In that short span of time!

“Tch!”

‘Looks like she’s out of cards now.’

The moment he saw the girl click her tongue openly at the sight, Vasquez was certain. He kicked off the ground and sprinted. In the time it took the girl to blink once, he was already within arm’s reach of her.

Sensing victory, Vasquez gave a bitter smile. Then he checked his prey’s expression. Watching the face his prey made at the end was one of his twisted hobbies.

But unfortunately, the girl didn’t make the expression Vasquez wanted.

‘…She’s still smiling?’

The girl was smiling. As if she were saying this whole situation was under her control.

‘It’s just a bluff!’

No Mana Shield, and the trap he’d assumed was her last-ditch effort had been destroyed. She should have nothing left.

Thinking that, Vasquez swung his dagger at the girl without a moment’s hesitation.

And once more.

CRACK!

‘…What?’

His strike was blocked by Verdi’s Mana Shield.

* * *

‘My Mana Shield broke in one hit?’

It had been a while since that happened, so it caught me off guard. How long had it been?

A Level 7 Mana Shield blocks most attacks. But that shield got shattered by a single dagger strike…

‘Well, at least it won’t be boring.’

A laugh slipped out. I felt like I might actually have some fun for the first time in a while.

CRACK!

While I was thinking that, the man who’d closed in swung his dagger at me again. Naturally, it was blocked by the Mana Shield.

Then, a look of bewilderment crept onto his face. Well, of course — there’s no other mage in this world besides me who can restore a Mana Shield this fast.

A Mana Shield is a barrier woven from the mana flowing through a mage’s body.

You can turn it on and off freely at will, but if it’s destroyed by an impact strong enough to exceed your total capacity, the mana flowing inside you vanishes in an instant. A mage whose mana has vanished can’t use magic, and if their mana bottoms out that way, they might even suffer severe aftereffects. That’s why mages always keep a reserve of mana.

But that has nothing to do with me.

My mana recovery speed is… I don’t know the exact number compared to others, but it’s probably at least ten thousand times faster?

If my total mana pool were small and my recovery rate were average, this bullshit Incantationless Casting Special Ability wouldn’t be all that useful either.

The biggest advantage of Incantationless Casting, from everything I’ve experienced so far, is definitely the speed.

While others are chanting incantations for their spells, I’ve already activated mine.

But with that speed comes a weakness. It’s the mana consumption.

When others use one powerful spell and take a moment to recover, I’m just pouring out spells nonstop without a break.

Eventually, the mana runs dry pretty fast. To put it simply, it’s kind of like premature ejaculation.

So more than anything else, I studied ways to recover mana first.

The result was a bit overkill compared to what I had in mind, but anyway, this is it.

[ Mana Shield Lv.7 ]

Zing—

I wrapped a transparent Mana Shield around my body again.

CRACK!

The moment I put it up, the man’s dagger shattered the Mana Shield in one hit again.

But I don’t care. I’ll just make another one.

[ Mana Shield Lv.7 ]

Keep trying if you want.

* * *

CRACK!

Vasquez didn’t stop stabbing this time. But no matter how fast he destroyed the Mana Shield, in that split-second instant, Verdi wove a new one.

‘Fuck, what the hell is this…!’

Watching that sight, Vasquez felt like his blood was drying up. He was the one attacking, yet somehow he felt like he was being pushed back. Even though the opponent wasn’t even counterattacking.

Assassins usually bet everything on the first strike when killing a mage. When the Mana Shield is destroyed and the mana hits zero in an instant, most mages either self-destruct or lose the strength to resist.

But Verdi was different from any Hunter Vasquez had ever met. Every time he destroyed her Mana Shield, she wrapped herself in a new one.

No matter how much total mana a body holds, once the shield is destroyed, the mana should drop to zero. Creating a Mana Shield consumes a fixed amount of mana. So how the hell can she make a new one this fast?

At that moment, a hypothesis formed in Vasquez’s mind.

What if her mana recovery speed was absurdly fast?

If someone were healing her mana the way a priest heals wounds with a spell, it would make sense.

But Vasquez had checked before facing the girl. There was no one who looked like her companion. Even now, it was just him and the girl here.

Then, in the end, the girl was recovering her mana on her own — he could accept that much.

But a mage who could regenerate a Mana Shield infinitely like this…

A mage who could do that…

‘I’ve never seen a mage like that…!’

Vasquez’s dagger kept destroying Verdi’s shield. The dagger he swung was so fast that even High-Rank Hunters had trouble defending against it, so precise that it could instantly kill a target in one blow, and so swift that just keeping up with it was a struggle.

Yet Vasquez was losing ground in his own strong suit — speed. The power of his slashes was strong enough to destroy the Mana Shield in one hit, but before the next strike could land, Verdi’s Mana Shield was generated faster, and his dagger was still only breaking through a transparent wall.

Vasquez rolled his eyes between slashes. He needed a way to break the girl’s concentration. Only then did it seem like he could land a blow on her before she created that damn Mana Shield again.

One hit would be enough. If he could land just a single strike, he was confident of victory.

And Vasquez found a way without much difficulty.

The ability he had awakened was Dominator’s Thread.

An ability that could control anything living under his domination.

It required intense concentration, but he was capable of moving his main body while using his domination ability.

He stealthily extended his empty hand. The empty hand aimed toward the tree where Verdi was standing.

The limitation to living things naturally included plants. The moment they received a portion of his physical abilities, even the most ordinary plant gained power comparable to a Demon Beast.

CRACK!

Vasquez kept destroying Verdi’s Mana Shield. Meanwhile, behind her, he secretly manipulated the branch of a plant he had dominated without her noticing.

While Verdi was focused on regenerating the destroyed Mana Shield, he would swing the branch to break her concentration. In that gap, he would finish her off before the Mana Shield could be restored.

That was Vasquez’s scheme.

‘Now!’

Vasquez’s slash aimed for Verdi.

CRACK!

At the very moment his dagger shattered Verdi’s Mana Shield.

The tree trunk he had threaded with Dominator’s Thread swung toward Verdi’s body.

Thump!

“…?”

Just as Verdi, sensing something behind her, grabbed the back of her neck. Vasquez didn’t miss the opening and lunged into her space.

Then, just as his dagger was about to pierce Verdi’s heart.

CRUNCH!

…Something no one had expected happened.

“Uh…”

Verdi, who hadn’t noticed Vasquez’s scheme.

And Vasquez, who thought his scheme had succeeded. Both had momentarily forgotten something.

“…What the hell is this?”

The egg Verdi had been holding up with gravity magic until just now had crushed Vasquez.