“The stone-back beast's hide, used as the casting material for Demonskin, is still a bit of a stretch for an apprentice wizard. But he only wants to wrap the part around his fists, so it's the best choice for him,” Half-Man said. “Your calm is beyond what I expected—you'll make a decent wizard. He knows about the Demon's Dice too; that was a gain from this journey, and just as much a precious thing that can be traded for resources to advance to wizard.”
The little kobold sucked at his teeth, feeling rather as though he were being used and schemed against—except that the bait he'd been fed was all genuine, solid stuff.
“You don't need these?” Luge said with a twist of his mouth.
“These things are already useless to me,” Half-Man said without so much as a blink.
Yet somehow one could tell this fellow was telling the absolute truth—and that was as good as an indirect admission that he was not the real Kaliu.
Luge thought of Baonte's gleaming longsword, and all at once felt a chill creep down the back of his neck.
“Can the Demonic Mark Meditation Method be changed?” he asked sincerely.
“It can, but are you willing to part with it? Will he believe it completely?” Half-Man said slowly. “And it would come at a great cost—your mental-power space may not be able to bear it. Even if he got hold of this meditation method, he wouldn't necessarily cultivate it himself; the cost of switching is still no small thing even for someone whose mental power has reached the apprentice's limit. He'd be far more likely to take it and trade it away.”
Luge nodded, his face calm.
At the same time he thought of still more. This fellow's doing all of this was certainly a profitable bargain: what he'd paid out had helped Luge gradually recover his ability to move and won back half of his head, and at the same time had tied him down, forcing him to face Baonte. On the surface the fellow was helping the other recover his freedom and mend his wounds, but in truth, step by step, Luge was being bound ever tighter by him.
That this fellow could stand here and talk so much now surely had its reasons too.
“You... surely can't do more than stroll, can you?” Luge ventured.
He felt that after he asked, Half-Man seemed to chuckle.
“This city is your opportunity, and I'll step in at the critical moment. I know what you're thinking—even if you left this city right now, I still couldn't act freely. You can think of it as my wounds not having healed yet, so this place is the best choice; everything is the best choice,” Half-Man said.
“The ball is about to begin, and we should be going too. This little alley isn't a fitting stage for the likes of you...”
The moment Half-Man finished speaking, Luge immediately felt a force envelop him.
The scenery around them shifted with dizzying speed, and he even seemed to glimpse the figure of a burly man who had hurried to the mouth of the alley by the tavern.
Then, all at once, the shifting stopped.
“Looks like we've come a little early.”
Luge looked around and found that this was a vast gladiator arena, piled together from huge, astonishingly numerous black stones. In the center was a circular ground, ringed by tiered stands of seats, and at that moment they were seated in the very front row.
“Don't be afraid, I'll help you. Everything is the best choice,” Half-Man said.
Just as Luge was puzzling over this in surprise, he was abruptly shoved down.
The instant both his feet touched the ground, a deafening roar of cheers erupted on every side, and the enormous arena trembled with the resounding shouts.
He first cast Boiling Spirit on himself, bringing his mind to full alert and pressing down the many stray thoughts in his heart.
Before him, a tall figure whose face he couldn't make out was already waiting.
That figure held an oddly shaped long staff, and the instant Luge began his spellcasting it came charging in; as it flicked and swept with the bent staff, it seemed not quite used to attacking such a short target.
Luge naturally went all out. Fetid Skin activated, yet that indistinct figure did not topple—instead it suddenly stopped dead in place. He tried lobbing a Fire Bolt at it, and the figure burst apart with a boom. At the same moment a blurry mass clung to him, like clothing—or rather, like armor—and his strength swelled considerably in an instant.
No sooner had one indistinct figure dispersed than another appeared, this one wielding an axe.
Luge grinned, overjoyed for a moment. Feeling the reward that came with winning the arena match—never mind for now whether he could carry any of it out of the city—he felt that at this rate he might truly be able to contend with Baonte.
Even as he thought this, the axe-wielding figure from afar had already lunged at him, almost within the range of Fetid Skin.
Boom!
The indistinct figure burst apart in an instant, shattering beneath the feet of Baonte, who had dropped from the sky, crushed outright underfoot.
The expression on Luge's face froze.
“Over there,” Luge said, pointing toward the stands. “After I threw the little circle and sent up the signal, he dumped me down here to punish me and make sport of me.”
He'd thought about this before. That Baonte had fixed his eyes on him was naturally bound up with Half-Man—but why keep him under watch instead of striking at once? Because in Baonte's eyes, his old friend Kaliu was the one who had to be ferreted out; this kobold swaggering about in plain sight before him, by contrast, was in no hurry to be dealt with.
“That doesn't matter anymore. I don't want to wait any longer. I hope you'll hand over that black book and spare me the magic stones it would take to get a wizard lord to wipe away the mark...”
As he spoke, Baonte had already brought out his gleaming longsword.
Anyone who knew Baonte understood that once this sword appeared, he had turned serious.
“Don't panic, I'll help you.”
Half-Man's voice sounded at Luge's ear, but his figure was long gone from the stands.
Almost at the same instant, numerous spell ripples flashed across the two who faced each other, each emptying their temporary spell slots in a single moment.
Luge's figure shot up rapidly, and from the top of his head—itching and aching—small horns pushed out, slightly longer than last time. The spell range of Fetid Skin seemed to shift in that instant as well, actually swallowing Baonte within it.
Baonte's figure swayed, yet he actually kept his footing.
Luge's eyes went wide. In Baonte he could sense nowhere near the fierce malice he had imagined.
“Is there any room left to ease this?” Luge tried, in the deepened voice that came with his transformed form.
Baonte said nothing, only steadied himself, then gripped his longsword and raised it upright at his side.
“You mean to kill me?” Luge said.
“Sorry.”
Baonte spat out the word.
Luge, however, was shaken to the core. This lunatic of a fellow clearly meant to kill him, and yet carried little malice in his heart.
This was simply too absurd!
He would never have believed it before—or rather, no one would believe—that such a person could exist in this world: one who could not be called good or bad, pure to a terrifying degree, so far beyond ordinary people's understanding.
Sure enough, he suddenly remembered the fire man's words—that man who loved cooking so much. Luge had always felt that this chef, who rarely raised his head when he spoke, had eyes that saw straight to the truth. This fellow's assessment of Baonte had been simply “strange”—a person who could only be described as strange.
Fortunately, Fetid Skin did still have some effect on Baonte after all.
Luge twisted sharply aside. A streak of silver flashed past, and a large chunk of flesh tore from his shoulder. The blurry armor bestowed by the arena was utterly useless, and the Body Lightening he'd been quietly empowering was broken off as well.
With a single strike Baonte dashed far off, and at once he found the reach of Fetid Skin's aura, standing warily at its edge.
“Your spells are strange, but you still won't be my match. I hope you can make things a little easier for us both,” Baonte said, his sword in hand.
Chapter 76