The Dark Warrior (29 page)

“Hup, okay.” Balance intact, Narberal nimbly landed on her feet and retreated farther away.

It would have been the perfect time for the skeletal dragon to follow up its attack, but it didn’t. It had to protect Khajit, so it couldn’t stray too far. Keeping an eye on the dragon, Narberal tried to shake the numbness and pain out of her trembling hands.

Then, Khajit peeked out from behind the monster. “Acid Javelin!”

“Lightning!”

His green spear went flying straight at Narberal. Normally she would have been wounded by the spray of acid, but it was repelled a couple inches away from her body and disappeared. At the same time, the bolt of lightning that sprang from Narberal’s finger was nullified when the skeletal dragon moved to block it.

The two adversaries glared at each other.

“…You cast a defensive spell? What a pain.”

“…A pain? That’s my line, bagworm moth. Why don’t you quit hiding and come out here?”

“Why should I have to do that?”

“Won’t your plan go haywire if you’re tied up fighting?”

She was right. Khajit narrowed his glare while Narberal just smiled.

“…I see I have no choice.” Having made up his mind, Khajit squeezed the strange sphere once again. Then, he held it up high. “Behold the power of the Jewel of Death!”

Narberal lost her balance—proof that the ground was shaking. It was a sign that something big had arrived. A moment later, the ground cracked open and something white slowly climbed out.

“…Another one?”

“Hmm! I’m already out of negative energy. But if I kill you and your friend and then spread death throughout town, I should be able to get quite a bit back!”

Narberal was unfazed, but Khajit was yelling furiously. She exhaled sharply and broke into a run—a run far faster than any normal person could run. Khajit was caught off guard and didn’t have time to react.

As Narberal entered the skeletal dragon’s range, it tried to attack her with its front legs. She twisted her body to slip past the stomps on her right, but then the other dragon’s tail came to sweep her feet out from under her.

She jumped clear and not a second too soon. Right below her, the tail plowed noisily through the spot she’d been standing. Then, it changed directions and whipped into the air to swing down at her.

The tail strike shook the ground, but Narberal had managed to dodge to the left, except the dragon on the right closed in to hit her with a front leg.

“Guh!” She took the forceful hit with her sword. It was
not
very light, but she stopped the foot and then shoved it back. The attacking skeletal dragon retreated, creating another brief interlude in the fighting.

“What are you?! To be able to block those attacks without using a martial art… How did you get so strong?”

“I was created by Supreme Beings whose powers surpass even the gods!”

“I won’t buy that, you idiot!”

“You can’t recognize the truth when you hear it and call
me
an idiot? This is why humans are nothing more than planarians!” Narberal flashed her eyes at Khajit.

It was such a strong gaze that it gave him the chills, and he took a step back. As if to shake himself free of his fear, he gave an order. “Get her, skeletal dragons!”

The dragons, maintaining proximity to Khajit, attacked Narberal again. She dodged one blow and tried to move in but lost her chance while evading a second. In the midst of that back-and-forth, Khajit made a decisive strike.

“Acid Javelin!”

The magic spear flew straight at her face, and Narberal moved her head,
without thinking, to dodge it. That was a mistake. It wouldn’t have done any
thing if it had hit her, so she should have ignored it. But since it was aimed at her face, her instincts had taken over. This was an error only a caster who hadn’t concentrated their efforts on melee combat would make—and she paid for it.

With a screeching noise, Narberal’s view abruptly changed—everything
flew by sideways. After a moment of weightlessness, she crashed into the ground. She’d taken a swipe of a skeletal dragon’s tail to her left upper arm, but still tumbling over and over, she couldn’t tell what had happened.

The multiple defensive spells she had cast meant there wasn’t much pain. She was flat on the ground, but before her eyes were two skeletal dragons. Both of them were brandishing their front legs.

It seemed like the end of the line. Normally, it would be.

“If you surrender, I’ll spare you!” Khajit, sure of his victory, grinned sadistically. Surely he had no intention of sparing her. That grin spoke louder than his words—he would simply savor the look on her face as he crushed her after she’d pleaded for her life.

Narberal had sat up, and her face was twisted in anger. “…an…sc…m…”

“…What?”

She glared at him. “Human scum, don’t talk that shit to me, you piece of garbage!”

Eyes bulging, Khajit shivered and screamed a panicky order. “Crush her, skeletal dragons!”

As the feet began to move, Narberal smiled. She couldn’t miss the voice of the one she worshipped, no matter how far away it was coming from:

“Narberal Gamma! Show them the might of Nazarick!”

“…As my lord wishes. Then, I shall face them not as Nabe, but as Narberal Gamma!”

She was still on the ground, and the dragon legs seemed like they were about to crush her. One blink of an eye and she’d be stomped flat. Then she cast a spell—

“Teleportation!”

Her view changed instantaneously—to one from more than 1,600 feet in the air.

Naturally, having no wings, she plummeted toward the ground.

The wind roared past her, and the ground grew closer. She cackled. “Fly!” Gradually slowing, she eventually came to a stop hovering in the air. Looking down, she saw the battlefield she had just been on, Khajit, and the two skeletal dragons. They glanced around restlessly, no doubt bewildered by her sudden disappearance.

“Ahh! I’m tired!” Clementine commented loud enough that Ainz could hear. After several minutes of action, Ainz’s great swords hadn’t so much as grazed her. “But ya know, ya do seem pretty strong. You’re probably pretty proud of that, but—” Her smile turned carnivorous. “—are you some kinda dummy? You’re just swingin’ that thing around with brute strength. There’s no technique—you’re like a kid swingin’ a stick around. I mean, it doesn’t do ya any good to have a sword in each hand if ya can’t use ’em right; it’d be smarter to use just one. I dunno if you appreciate the complexities of being a warrior!”

“Then maybe you should attack me. All you’ve been doing this whole time is evading. You’re the one who’s deeper in trouble the more time goes by, right?” Ainz sneered.

Clementine scowled. It was true that she hadn’t attacked him even once; she’d just been dodging. Faced with his superior physical abilities, she hadn’t been able to find an opening. In other words, she wasn’t having such an easy time, either. Her irritation at herself stemmed from her earlier bragging.

“I thought there weren’t any warriors who could beat you! Where’d that confidence go?”

“…” Finally, allowing Ainz to provoke her, she drew a weapon. From the four stilettos and a morning star she had hanging from her waist, she had selected a stiletto.

Noticing with his extraordinary vision that the morning star was caked with what looked like meaty blood, Ainz clenched both of his great swords with his full strength.

Just as both of them were about to step forward, the ground shook.

In combat mode, Clementine couldn’t shift her gaze too much, but she did take a look to see what was going on—there were two dragons made out of bones over where Narberal was fighting.

“Skeletal…dragons…?”

“Bingooo! That’s right—ya know your stuff, huh? They’re a caster’s worst nightmare!”

“I see. So that’s why you say Nabe can’t win.”

“Exxxactly.” Having regained composure with the appearance of the skeletal dragons, Clementine returned to her previous mocking tone.

The illusion face under Ainz’s helmet grimaced. Skeletal dragons were a tough opponent for casters. And against two of them, Narberal
the way she was now
had as good as no chance at winning.

Perhaps sensing his frustration, Clementine made a subtle move. It could have been a feint, but it wouldn’t be
only
a feint. If a warrior showed a talented adversary a weak spot, they could bet that advantage would be taken.

Pushing Narberal to the edge of his consciousness, Ainz thrust his left hand’s great sword out like a spear as a threat and held the one in his right hand over his head.

Clementine’s weapon was a stabbing weapon; it didn’t have the variety of attacks a cutting weapon did. Stab—that was all it could do. And her stilettos were delicate, not sturdy enough to clash with a great sword.

So with his left sword up, making it difficult for her to approach, he just waited for her. But she realized what he was up to.

“Do you have a way to close that distance?”

“Oh, I dunno…” Her casual attitude, relaxed appearance, and flippant smile told him she wasn’t lacking ideas.

Slowly her posture changed. It was as if she were crouched and on her mark but standing up—an odd posture. In a way, it was kind of a funny pose, but it definitely wasn’t a stance that could be taken lightly.

Then, she moved. To Ainz’s alert eyes, she was like a spring that had been compressed to its limits and sprung. She was racing directly at him at a speed that was hard for Ainz to believe; it seemed beyond what flesh was capable of.

Like a storm moving in to swallow everything up in a moment, Clementine closed the distance in the blink of an eye and slipped past the pointed great sword without losing speed.

Her movements were like a snake going in for the kill. Startled, Ainz swung his right arm with his immense strength. The mighty attack seemed to cut the very air and was accompanied by unimaginable destructive power.

He had less than a split second but noted the fissure-like smile on her face intensify.

“Impenetrable Fortress!”

Beholding something that should be impossible, Ainz shivered in astonishment. The slim stiletto had taken the full force of the blow from his great sword, more than ten times its weight.

That sword taking Ainz’s glorious attack should have snapped in half, or even if by some miracle it didn’t, Clementine should have gone flying. On the contrary, Ainz’s sword bounced hard, as if he’d hit a tremendously solid castle wall.

Clementine jumped at his wide-open chest like a lover slipping into an embrace. Her well-formed features and the smile widened across them loomed large in his field of vision.

The attack came well before he could retreat. Uniting her full-throttle sprint with the strength of all her muscles, she took advantage of her body’s momentum to deliver a strike that deserved the word
meteor
.

The sparkle of a flourish and the awful
kreeeee
of metal scraping metal echoed loudly through the graveyard. Ainz hastily swung his left great sword, but Clementine jumped aside.

He knew her trick. “A martial art?” They were moves to be careful of—skills that didn’t exist in
Yggdrasil
, warrior magic.
It must protect her sword and give her physical indomitability.
That had to have been how she’d repelled Ainz’s attack.

“…Tough stuff! What’s that armor made of, adamantite?”

There wasn’t any pain at all, but at the time of that abrasive noise, he’d felt something with a sharp point stick into the area near his left shoulder. Shocked, he looked at his shoulder and discovered a slight dent. It may not have had any special magical powers, but this was still armor made by a level-100 caster—and it was proportionally hard. The fact that Clementine had managed to damage it spoke volumes to her destructive power.

“Well, whatever. Just the next time I gotta hit somewhere less heavily protected. Aw, but I wanted to chip away at ya till ya couldn’t move and torture you! Too bad—what a shame.”

Hearing that she attacked his shoulder not by chance but because she was aiming to incapacitate his arm caused Ainz to respect her—a bit—for the first time.