“To me, it didn’t matter whether I won or lost this duel… But no, it’s not your fault for not admitting defeat.”
“…”
Despite Eliza’s angry outbursts, Shion remained calm, but suddenly his gaze became intense as he spoke.
“No matter how badly beaten you are, how much stronger your opponent is, or how hopeless the situation seems—as long as you don’t give up, it’s not over.”
“…”
There was an unusual weight to his words.
The pressure of his gaze from below made Eliza flinch.
“If, in that moment when I stood before you, I had attacked again, maybe you could have dodged, or blocked it, or maybe it wouldn’t have affected you at all. …At that point, you definitely hadn’t lost yet.”
With that, Shion continued.
“No matter how dire the situation, as long as you didn’t believe you’d lost, it wasn’t over. I got careless, thinking I’d already won, and you took advantage of that. —That’s why this duel was undeniably my loss.”
“!”
Shion calmly explained his defeat and Eliza’s victory.
“If I were in your shoes, I would have done the same. Well, it’s true I hoped you’d give up after that, but I can’t blame you for not.”
“What…!? Then why, after saying all that, did you admit defeat so easily!? You can still fight, can’t you!?”
Eliza demanded, accusingly.
“Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t keep going.”
“What do you mean you can’t!? You still seem fine!”
As Shion calmly responded, Eliza refused to listen.
“…It’s easier to show than to explain.”
With that, Shion, still lying under Eliza, began to remove the top of his battle suit.
“Huh!? W-What are you doing!? Why are you undressing again…?”
Eliza panicked, recalling Shion’s earlier behavior in the storage room. …However.
“…What?”
At first, Eliza blushed and tried to stop him, but the moment she saw a certain part of Shion’s upper body, her face went pale.
“What…is that…?”
What she saw was the skin around Shion’s right chest, which had turned a horrible shade of black and blue.
“This? My ribs are broken.”
As he said this, Shion pressed his fingers against the discolored area of his ribs.
“See?” he said as he pushed, his fingers easily sinking unnaturally deep into his flesh with a soft cracking sound.
“Ow.”
“Eek! Aahhhhhh!!”
Eliza screamed at the sight of his bizarre behavior.
“H-Hey!! Stop that right now!! Doesn’t it hurt!?”
“My ribs are broken, of course it hurts. Are you sane?”
“That’s my line!! If it hurts, stop!! Are you crazy!?”
“I figured it was the quickest way to show you that they’re broken.”
“Okay, okay, I get it!! Now take your fingers out!!”
Seeing how distressed Eliza was, Shion calmly complied. As he removed his fingers, they left behind a clearly unnatural dent in his torso.
“You’re…definitely insane…”
As Eliza said, this abnormality was part of his nature.
Even if all his bones were broken at once, it would be nothing compared to the pain a mage experiences during “magic depletion.”
Since Shion regularly endured “magic depletion” during his daily training, the pain of a few broken ribs was something he could easily mask.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel pain; he could pretend he wasn’t in agony, even when he really wanted to scream.
Using this extraordinary pain tolerance, Shion had proven his broken ribs to Eliza with his strange actions.
“You see? I can’t fight anymore. With such a serious injury, this duel is clearly my loss.”
Once again, he calmly insisted on his defeat.
“I said that it’s not over unless you admit defeat, but I have no reason to risk my life to win this duel. Admitting defeat is enough for me. Unless…you challenged me because you wanted to beat me to a pulp? Is this not enough?”
“…”
“(Heh, my logic is flawless),” Shion thought with satisfaction, while Eliza was at a loss for words.
Eliza-Lowred might have a bit of a haughty side, but she still had at least some basic decency.
After all, there was no way she could demand the duel continue after seeing the man seriously injured by her own magic.
“I-I didn’t mean to go this far…”
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT LOCALIZERMEERKAT.PAGES.DEV
In fact, she was so shaken by the extent of the damage she’d caused that she stammered,
Even though she was furious about him seeing her underwear and had wanted to beat him up for it, seeing the gruesome injuries she’d inflicted made her understandably upset.
“If that magic arrow you fired had hit me, I think I’d be dead right now.”
“Don’t be stupid! I adjusted the penetration power so it wouldn’t be lethal even if it hit!”
Shion glanced at the arena wall just to his right, noting the massive destruction left behind. “(Yeah, even if that didn’t penetrate, I’d probably still be dead…)” he thought, but kept that to himself.
He figured it was best not to say anything that might upset Eliza further. Just as Shion was thinking this—
“…Healing Magic.”
Eliza suddenly placed her hand over the injured area of Shion’s upper body and cast a healing spell.
A faint greenish-yellow light appeared, and as it enveloped him, Shion’s pain rapidly subsided, his bruised skin returning to its healthy color.
“…What are you doing?”
“Shut up. Just stay quiet.”
She snapped at the confused Shion, continuing to heal him.
“…There, that should do it. If you don’t want it to break again, make sure you rest.”
After continuing the healing for a bit longer, she finally stopped and spoke.
“Don’t tell me…you’re planning to keep this duel going?”
“N-No! I just, uh, went a little too far, that’s all…”
Despite her vehement denial, her voice grew weaker, making it hard for Shion to catch what she said.
“…What?”
“A-Argh, you’re so annoying! What is it?! You got a problem with me healing you? You want me to kill you!?”
Eliza, who had been looking down, suddenly lifted her head and shouted angrily.
“…No… I don’t. Please don’t kill me.”
Shion replied, feeling intimidated by her sudden and irrational outburst.
“Hmph, that’s better,” Eliza responded.
“The duel’s… over. I got my frustration out by beating you up, so we’re done here.”
“What about making me grovel and lick your boots?”
“I don’t care about that anymore. You don’t even feel humiliated right now, do you?”
With that, Eliza stood up and moved away from Shion.
“But your smug attitude still annoys me, so one of these days, I’ll make you pay.”
She pointed her finger at Shion as she looked down at him.
“Pay? Like this?”
“Of course not, idiot!”
“…Well, I’d really rather avoid any more trouble.”
“And I’d really appreciate it if you stopped talking like that. It’s super annoying.”
“…Well, I’m sorry, but—”
“Didn’t I just say it’s annoying!? Stop it!!”
“…Sigh, whatever.” Eliza concluded that arguing with this crazy guy any further would only tire her out.
“…I’m leaving.”
With that, she began to walk briskly toward the arena’s exit.
It seemed like she was going to leave just like that, but she suddenly turned back toward Shion once more.
“Remember, one day, I’ll settle this for real!”
With those words, Eliza opened the door to the exit.
“Idiot!”
She shouted as she slammed the door behind her and left the arena.
Eliza-Lowred had left the arena, leaving Shion alone inside.
He was sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall with his right leg stretched out and his left knee bent.
And his face right now—was twisted into a very bitter, yet satisfied, grin.
He tried to put on his usual cool expression, but it was no use. His facial muscles kept relaxing, and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling, his mouth curling up at the corners.
The reason someone as skilled at keeping a straight face as Shion was now unable to suppress his grin was the duel he’d just had with Eliza-Lowred.
In that duel, he’d been utterly crushed by one of her attacks and had been forced to surrender.
But that very outcome was exactly the clear victory Shion had envisioned before the duel began.
He had dodged all of Eliza’s magic, making it look like a display of overwhelming skill, only to then deliberately get hit by her magic and surrender.
The key condition was to make Eliza think, “I could’ve finished this anytime I wanted.” At the same time, he needed to satisfy her desire to “beat him up for seeing her underwear” by allowing her magic to hit him.
Moreover, it wasn’t just about getting hit by her magic; it was crucial that it happened in a way that Eliza couldn’t help but accept. Otherwise, things wouldn’t have been resolved.
If Shion had deliberately lost in a way that Eliza noticed, she wouldn’t have been satisfied with the outcome, which would have prolonged the conflict, further delaying his return to Restia, who was waiting for him.
By meeting all these complex conditions, Shion had brilliantly acted out the duel exactly as he had envisioned.
Although he technically lost, there was no doubt that Shion was the real victor in this duel.
He, a man born with no talent for magic and inferior even to the average person, had managed to secure a practical victory against the overwhelmingly superior Eliza-Lowred.
Achieving such a remarkable feat of turning the tables made it impossible for him to suppress his grin.
…However, the fact remained that in terms of actual ability, Shion was indeed inferior to Eliza.
He planned to give the impression that he could finish off Eliza whenever he wanted to, and he succeeded in his plan.
While he had succeeded in creating the impression that “I could’ve finished this anytime I wanted,” that was far from the truth; it was only an impression.
Using “Limit Break Acceleration,” he had dodged all her magic and closed the distance, making it seem like he could easily finish her off at any moment, but in reality, that was utterly impossible.
The moment Shion declared “Checkmate,” he was already out of magic, barely able to stay on his feet.
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