Chapter 178: Even Spirits Refuse 996!
Before anyone could recover from Shiro's warning—
Clang, clang, clang—!
A sharp, grating noise rang out from behind the silver-haired girl as a blade scraped across ice.
At some point, a small gray cat had appeared behind her, floating upright in the air on two legs.
It was confronting an extremely alluring woman dressed in black.
The harsh sound just now had come from the curved blade in the woman's hand scraping across the block of ice in front of the cat.
"Whew, that was close."
"Lia almost got hurt there. Thanks, mister."
The gray cat spoke in a human voice, then raised one of its front paws and gave Shiro a thumbs-up.
And judging from what the cat had called her, "Lia" was probably the silver-haired girl's real name.
"So she's a Spirit Arts User too..."
Old Man Rom murmured.
Spirits were supernatural beings given life by Od Laguna, materializing in the physical world through mana and using their own wills to interfere with reality.
From lowest to highest, they were classified as minor spirits, quasi-spirits, spirits, and great spirits.
Spirit Arts Users were special practitioners born from this system.
They possessed the unique aptitude to form contracts with spirits and could use the [Gate] connecting them to contracted spirits to directly draw mana from the atmosphere and cast spells.
When both the Spirit Arts User and their contracted spirit were powerful, the strength they displayed together could become terrifying.
One plus one could easily become greater than two.
And the gray cat before them just happened to be an extremely powerful spirit.
"Hey! Weren't you the one who hired me to steal that insignia?!"
While Shiro carefully observed the gray cat, Felt finally recognized the alluring woman's face and shouted furiously.
"Why are you suddenly attacking them?!"
"Hmm?"
The woman calling herself Elsa tilted her head in confusion.
"I was indeed hired to retrieve the stolen insignia."
"But now the owner has already found her way here, hasn't she?"
Halfway through her sentence, Elsa suddenly revealed a gentle smile.
Yet her next words made everyone's hair stand on end.
"So I thought... if I kill everyone here and take the insignia back afterward, then my job is still completed, isn't it?"
Elsa smilingly announced that she intended to kill everyone present as casually as if she were discussing what to eat for dinner.
However, the enormous murderous intent radiating from her body made one thing perfectly clear.
She was serious.
"In that case..."
A trace of coldness appeared in the gray cat's deep blue eyes.
"I haven't introduced myself yet."
"My name is Puck."
"As punishment for trying to kill my beloved daughter, remember that name well before you go to hell!"
The instant Puck finished speaking, dozens of icicles appeared from thin air and shot toward Elsa from every direction.
Boom—!
Boom—!
Boom—!
Explosions continuously echoed through the Loot House.
Puck unleashed his full firepower, carpeting the already rather small building with attacks.
Judging solely from the destruction caused whenever an icicle struck the ground, anyone hit directly would definitely have a terrible time.
However—
"Hehe... So this is a spirit?"
"Now I really want to pull out your intestines and take a look."
Amid the wreckage, a flash of steel sliced through the white mist and stabbed toward Puck's abdomen.
It was Elsa.
Using the fog created by Puck's attacks to hide herself, she had silently circled behind him and launched a surprise attack.
Strangely, despite Puck's dense bombardment moments earlier, Elsa remained completely unharmed.
Other than losing the black coat she had originally been wearing, not even a scratch had appeared on her body.
"Hey! Watch out! She's behind you!"
Felt shouted a warning at the critical moment.
Unfortunately, she was still too late.
Although Puck and the girl he called Lia could cast spells extremely quickly, magic itself required many complicated steps.
Elsa's curved blade needed less than a second to pierce Puck's abdomen and tear out his insides.
However—
Just as Elsa believed victory was already hers, she suddenly saw the cold, contemptuous look in Puck's eyes.
"Next time you try a sneak attack, remember to hide your killing intent."
Clang—!
Elsa's blade once again struck a wall of ice, leaving only a shallow scratch across its surface.
"I see... So this is how a Spirit Arts User fights."
She spun the curved blade elegantly in her hand before switching targets and charging directly toward the silver-haired girl herself.
Normally, the stronger a spell was, the more complicated its construction became.
Because of that, while a mage was constructing a sufficiently powerful offensive spell, they often could not simultaneously prepare a defensive one.
Spirit Arts Users broke that conventional rule.
What made them troublesome was precisely the fact that one party could devote themselves entirely to defense while the other focused completely on offense.
This gave Spirit Arts Users an overwhelming advantage in one-on-one battles.
After all, strictly speaking, once their spirit was included, they were always fighting as a pair.
Therefore, when facing a Spirit Arts User, if retreat was not an option—Killing the contractor first was usually the best choice.
"Don't even think about it!"
Puck growled.
Countless chunks of ice appeared from thin air and were fired forward at impossible speeds.
Elsa did not back down.
Facing icy shadows moving too quickly for ordinary people to even see, she displayed extraordinary flexibility.
Like a spider, she sometimes ran directly along the walls.
At other times, she lowered her body and advanced with bizarre footwork.
Whenever an icicle was truly impossible to avoid, she simply shattered it with the curved blade in her hand.
Their exchange was so fast that it became difficult to follow.
One side of the Loot House would barely finish collapsing before the sound of Elsa's blade splitting ice rang out from the other.
"So this is what fighting in another world looks like..."
The dazzling battle between the two girls and one cat left Subaru completely dumbfounded.
Only now did he finally gain a genuine sense that he was living in a fantasy world.
This kind of battle, where a single careless moment could cost someone their life, sent his adrenaline soaring.
He was terrified that Puck might accidentally send an icicle flying in his direction.
"Hey, mister."
"You're pretty strong too, aren't you?"
"Why don't you go help them?"
While the others fought fiercely, Felt poked Shiro with one slender finger.
Shiro shook his head.
"There's no need."
He pointed toward Puck.
"It might look evenly matched right now, but Elsa's stamina is constantly being depleted."
"Meanwhile, that spirit called Puck draws mana directly from the air whenever he uses magic."
"With one side weakening while the other remains supplied, barring anything unexpected, that girl's victory is only a matter of ti—"
Before Shiro could finish—
Puck's body suddenly began glowing and turned partially transparent.
"Puck, are you okay?"
While constructing another defensive spell, the silver-haired girl quietly asked the spirit floating near her shoulder.
"Sorry... Lia."
"It's time."
"I'm starting to get really sleepy... I underestimated her a little."
"You should go rest."
"I'll figure something out here. Thank you."
"If anything really goes wrong, summon me even if you have to squeeze out your Od."
"Don't forget the promise we made..."
The instant Puck left those words behind and disappeared, Shiro suddenly felt someone staring at him.
The emotion contained in that gaze was so intense that it was impossible to ignore.
"..."
Under Felt's stare, which now looked exactly like she was glaring at a jinx, only one thought remained in Shiro's mind.
'What the hell?'
'Even spirits are refusing 996 these days?!!'
…
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