Chapter 52
Nn~~...fuhee....」
Spawning at the inn in Tria I had logged out at yesterday, I stretched out my body and checked my plans for today.
I had an appointment with Kohaku to have training with her later, at noon. I planned to arrive here earlier, but because Shuten abducted me, my plans had deviated a bit.
When I opened the menu to check the time, I noticed that something felt off about it.
「Nn? Huh? The time didn’t advance at all.....?」
The time I logged in at and the current time...there were virtually no differences between the two.
I’m pretty sure that I was at least there for five minutes, but....had I misread the time and actually logged in sooner than I thought?
「Oh well. Let’s see, the center of Tria was where the Aquatic Arena was, right?」
Having the ticket that Kohaku gave me in my hands, I left the inn.
The place she had designated was a part of Tria’s entertainment infrastructure. And it was known as the Aquatic Arena.
Once per week, a competition would happen, and if a player paid then they could participate in it. Aside from when that happened, there was usually a fight between monsters that you could bet on. This was what you might call public government-managed gambling, it seemed. And then there was a mini-arena beside the Aquatic Arena, opened to the public for use as a training space.
It seemed that the training space was something used when you received a training quest from an NPC. Training against an NPC adventurer, that seemed like it would be good practice, wouldn’t it?
And naturally, that was also the reason I was called there.
☆
「Let’s do our best today too~~」
『Wako』
『Wakoko』
『Wakokoko』
「Is there a three-step SOP for this or something?」
I wore a bitter smile at the comment section’s overly unified greeting.
Since I was juggling both Kohaku and the stream yesterday, I couldn’t really chat with the viewers.
That may also have been fine, but thinking that I would be meeting with Kohaku later today, I thought it was fine to interact with the viewers now.
「Looks like there is still time left...」
『What are you doing today?』
『Awsome, it’s just like Venezia』
『Hiee, the waterway is deep...isn’t it deep?』
『The water sure is clean』
「It might really be deep. Ah, I can see a water dragon.」
While enjoying myself on the streets of Tria, the City of Water, I walked down the path that led towards the arena.
Just as the name Water Fortress implied, Tria was placed right in the middle of the lake, but I wondered just what methods they used to be able to construct a town like this?
There were canals that ran throughout the town. Rather than walking around, it felt like commuting would be much more pleasant if you just flagged down a gondola like a taxi.
Since the place I was aiming for was easy to find, I didn’t ride on one, but it might be more comfortable to ride one on the way back.
「Hey you, girl over there! That’s an unfamiliar face I see there!」
While I was looking around as I walked, I was called out by the uncle from one of the food carts along the streets.
「I arrived here just yesterday, after all.」
「I see, then you haven’t eaten Tria’s famous, locally-produced Water Dragon Steamed Buns, have you? Since you’re here, how about grabbing one?」
「Oh, what a strong sales pitch.....in that case, give me two.」
「Thanks for buying!」
Paying 500 Iris, I got two huge steamed buns....no, they were way too big, just what was this!?
A diameter of around thirty centimeters, and a height of around six centimeters. Having two of them in the package caused it to be quite bulky.
『Damn huge』
『That’s big』
『BIG』
『Isn’t that size weird?』
It looked like the watchers also had the same impression as me. I unintentionally looked at the other cart’s offerings. Yeah, I guess you could consider this to be the normal size of steamed buns here.
I should get one for Kohaku too....I bought it thinking like that, but could Kohaku eat this?
Receiving it with an awkward face, the clerk laughed at me as I moved on.
They said that it was better to go too large rather than too small, but as expected a giant thirty-centimeter steamed bun was just too much.
「Ah, it’s good.」
『How does it taste?』
『Looks watery』
『Looks juicy』
「Well, it’s just a normal steamed bun.」
『Tsk』
『Tsk』
『kke』
The watcher’s reaction was way too bitter.
Although it was just a normal-tasting, if gigantic, steamed bun, that was exactly why it was delicious.
Just what was it about this Water Dragon Steamed Bun.....?
After that, I bought grilled fish on a skewer, and it got stolen by a water dragon child from the canals. I was kinda enjoying sightseeing.
☆
「Oh, you’re early.」
「No, rather, isn’t Kohaku even earlier? Too much so?」
「I’ve just been looking forward to it that much. I have been waiting here for two hours.」
The training space that was built beside the Aquatic Arena. It was a training space that you could say was big enough to hold another competition inside of it. Kohaku smiled as she said that.
It was still an hour before noon. So two hours before this time, then wouldn’t she have arrived around 9?
Surrounding us, there were NPCs and players training zealously. The air overflowed with the energy of them practicing their arts and training to learn skills.
And then, because Kohaku was a famous NPC, were they curious? Even though she was just standing still, she had gathered attention.
「Here you go, a Water Dragon Steamed Bun. I’ll give you one」
「Ooh, that sure is nostalgic. Since its price-performance ratio was good, I ate this a lot when I was younger, you know......Yeah, it sure is good.」
「It was bigger than I thought, so I was surprised.」
It was the same Water Dragon Steamed Bun that I ate before coming here, but Kohaku happily accepted it and ate all of it in a blink of an eye.
Let me guess, she was quite a glutton, wasn’t she?
「Thanks, that tasted good.」
「You’re welcome. So, what are we gonna do today?」
「Before that, did you properly remember the dances that I taught you yesterday?」
「《Dance of the Man-eater (Rasetsu no Mai)》 and the 《Double-edged Dance (Moroha no Mai)》right」(9: the man eater part can also be Rakshasa)
「Yeah, nice job remembering it.」
Rare skill 《Dance of the Oni (Oni no Mai)》. 《First Formation -Rasetsu no Mai-》. And then 《Second Formation -Moroha no Mai》. Both of them handled well, and to kijin they were arts they could use without many drawbacks.
Rasetsu no Mai made your wisdom 0, but in exchange your physical abilities would be buffed, a rather simple art.
You could learn it once you exceeded 100 strength, but that being said, if you hadn’t reached 100 strength then you wouldn’t be able to learn Oni no Mai in the first place.
The magnification from Rasetsu no Mai was quite large, a 20% increase. It didn’t have any particularly bad-looking demerits, either. If I were to forcefully list some, it’d be that for one use you got a rather short one minute effect and then to use it again you would need to wait at least ten minutes.
And regarding Moroha no Mai, as the name suggested, it was an art that threw away your defense.
It brought your toughness and magic resistance down to 0, and on top of that, you would lose the defensive bonuses from your armor, but in exchange, your physical strength and agility would be boosted enormously.
The increase was a factor of 2x for strength and a factor of 1.5x for agility, which were huge magnifiers, but because it reduced your defense to 0, you were very limited in terms of techniques with recoil damage.
For example, the《Unarmed Combat》’s art《Ten Point Cherry Blossom (Toezakura)》 depended on your defense to reduce recoil damage, so if you had no defense then you would just instantly dissolve.
And obviously, since you had thrown away all your defense, every attack from an enemy would be fatal. You really could call it a double-edged blade.
And as it had an effective usage time of five minutes and was a strong technique in and of itself, you could multiply it with the effects of Rasetsu no Mai or 《Ravenous Wolf》.
Basically, I could instantly have a strength that was multiplied by over a factor of three. And also my agility would increase over two times as well.
By the way, it seemed that the effect that would be magnified would be《Ravenous Wolf》. (9: basically ravenous wolf is the one being multiplied as the base)
Most likely, the reason behind this was that Moroha no Mai was only a single art from a skill, whereas Ravenous Wolf was a rare skill of its own in the first place.
Just glancing at it, although its effects were great, it’s drawbacks were huge. However, though Ravenous Wolf might make you think it was inferior to Moroha no Mai, it actually had the powerful effect of being able to be magnified by other buffs as well.
Basically, a 2x buff would give +100% to your base strength and a 3x buff would give +200%. If you added the bonuses from the two buffs separately, you would have +300% strength, equivalent to a 4x buff. But if you multiplied the 2x buff and the 3x buff together, you would have the equivalent of a 6x buff. The advantages of this ability should be clear.
The required strength was 150, and the cooldown time was one hour. There was no mistake that compared to Rasetsu no Mai it would be even less possible to spam, and compared to Ravenous Wolf, Moroha no Mai was definitely an art you could use more lightly.
「I only taught it to you yesterday, so you are still not used to using Oni no Mai, right? That’s why I thought that today we could test that.」
Saying that, Kohaku signalled one of the NPCs at the side of the training area.
After a while, the players and NPCs that were scattered around the training space went out in groups. It became a mini arena once more, and only Kohaku and I remained within it.
「I kinda asked them to lend me this for a bit. Paying them money, I had them let me use this place for a bit.」
「Are we fighting a monster or something?」
Hearing that it was because of Kohaku that there wasn’t anyone else here, I asked her a question, thinking that we would be training against monsters like the neighboring arena did.
Hearing that, Kohaku smiled and then clearly shook her head horizontally.
「No, what Sukuna is going to fight is not a monster.」
「Eh?」
「You are strong. And your talent is way above others. Regarding your talent in battle, it’s so much that even I, the strongest Kijin, am barely on your level. That’s why I believed that I had to teach you this.」
Kohaku jumped to the center of the training space with a carefree tone and then quietly took her stance.
Seeing her do that and hearing her words, I was not stupid enough to misunderstand.
A practice match. To do that, Kohaku purposely reserved the training space for a limited time.
Recognizing that, I lightly clanged both of the heavy metal gauntlets on my arms and switched on my focus.
At the center of the circular field, both Kohaku and I took our stances.
Kohaku closed her eyes and then reopened them.
At that moment, throughout the entire training space, a chilling pressure erupted violently.
「Come at me with your all. I shall crush you at your strongest.」
Before the smiling princess of the oni.
Just against one person, I could feel the air thrum with the aura of a huge presence, as if I were going against a behemoth.
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