Konbini Ossan Volume 6 Chapter 23 — The Old Man of a Thousand Tricks
I raised the knife I had just created. Seeing that, Kanehama lifted his sword in wary stance.
“A knife, huh… I won’t say it’s bad, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“You’ll understand once we fight.”
A bold remark from him, and my evasive reply.
The next moment, I launched my attack.
Inside the murky fog of «Curse-sludge» and «Miasma», I created a small dark-matter cylinder.
One end sealed, the other open. I packed the inside tightly with cursed mud, then formed a needle-shaped dark-matter plug at the opening and sealed it completely.
Inside the airtight tube, I rapidly generated a dark-matter rod exactly matching the enclosed volume.
Pressure spiked instantly, firing the needle like a water gun or blow dart.
Naturally, it flew toward Kanehama’s leg. I aimed only to wound, not kill.
An invisible shot from within the fog — a normal opponent wouldn’t even realize they’d been hit before collapsing.
But the moment it fired, Kanehama leapt aside.
“A surprise attack? That’s scary stuff you're doing.”
“You say that after dodging it?”
“Yes. My skills include something like future prediction, after all.”
The hero’s cheat-grade abilities really were absurd.
“In that case, how about this?”
I escalated my offense.
Inside the cursed mud, I formed countless dark-matter flechettes, arranging them in a circle around him.
I fired them one after another — shoot, retract, reform, shoot — a saturation bombardment.
“This is… quite destructive!”
Even so, he remained unharmed.
With his sword planted in the ground, he channeled magic into it, creating a shimmering barrier of light. It deflected every flechette.
Still, the strain showed; he wore a wry smile.
“Then allow me to return the favor!”
His turn.
He kept his right hand on his sword and pointed his left at me.
“«Shining Ray»!”
Instinctively I understood — a hero’s light-attribute spell.
I threw myself sideways. A beam streaked past, following the exact trajectory I had been standing in.
The beam was fast enough that reacting after seeing it was impossible. The instant his hand pointed at me, I had to evade or be hit dead-center.
If this kept up, only I would be taking risks while dodging his attacks. I needed to break that barrier of light somehow and land a hit.
So I advanced.
Sword still grounded, Kanehama waited calmly, as if welcoming my approach.
Even so, the only way ahead was… forward.
I closed in, swinging the knife with a controlled, non-lethal arc meant for a duel.
But he didn’t need to block. He twisted naturally out of the line of fire and seized my wrist with his free hand.
Then, in one smooth motion, he threw me — a perfect martial arts technique.
So he had trained in hand-to-hand combat as well.
But it wasn’t all one-sided.
“Tch… all these dirty tricks of yours!”
He grimaced.
The hand he grabbed me with was now swollen and red. I had coated that arm with «Calamity», «Miasma» and «Curse-sludge», turning it into a poisoned hand.
Even with his resistances, it clearly hurt.
And with this exchange, I learned the rough limits of his future-prediction skill.
Most likely, he could only foresee events in which he faced immediate danger.
If he had known exactly how I would attack — knife trajectory, hidden threat, everything — he wouldn’t have grabbed me.
He would have avoided touching my arm entirely.
He probably only foresaw the image of me swinging a knife. So he evaded that, threw me, and thought he was safe.
But the true danger wasn’t the blade — it was my wrist.
Meaning he couldn’t avoid the damage.
In other words, if I disguised my offensives well enough, landing a hit on Kanehama was entirely possible.
——————
E/N:
This is heating up! A lot of dirty tricks, you say? Doesn't matter! This ain't a fight for pride, this is for love and… everything is fair in love and war, ENGARDE!
Stay tuned!
——————
——————————
Check out my other project -
——————————
Comments
Post a Comment