CH 31

Chapter 1 — Blow all of heaven and earth to smithereens! • Episode 1-Leisure • Blade's Training

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

A girl with a double-edged sword stood in a quiet nighttime residential area. The girl is dressed in a pure white blazer-like outfit, partially equipped with armor to protect her vital points. That girl, with her long, beautiful black hair blowing in the wind, is the Magical Girl Blade.

Her opponent was a pitch-black boar with the size of a passenger car. The class of the Boar-like Diest is Baron-class. It was an enemy that would normally be impossible to challenge head-on alone, but if she don’t challenge it, she will never be able to overcome it.

Blade was careful not to miss even the slightest movement of the Diest, and activated the magic that he normally keeps sealed.

「Sword Dance.」

Three swords exactly the same as those held by the Blade float in the air and start to move by themselves. If someone ask whether each sword is dancing as if it were dancing with a will, the answer would be no. The three swords are wielded by invisible arms that can only interfere with the swords, and the arms are controlled by Blade herself. In other words, Blade is currently fighting with four swords, controlled by her own will.

The boar-shaped Diest, realizing the change of situation as soon as the sword appears, kicks the ground. The Diest approaches Blade with the force of a car’s sudden acceleration, but Blade avoids the rush, which is too linear, with a side step. As she pass each the Diest, she strike it with a single sword in the air, carving three cuts on the Diest’s body.

The evaded Diest plunged into the wall of the house, and finally came to a halt after hitting three, four, and several walls. A black haze dissolves from the carved wounds like smoke and disappears into the air, but the wounds are soon regenerated.

（I can see the movement. I can handle it well enough.）

Since the use of the sword dance requires a certain amount of concentration, there is no time to use it when fighting together with other magical girls. It would be a real disaster if she lose sight of her surroundings and start fighting with others. That’s why, Blade usually leaves the vanguard to Elephant, who have no means of long-range attack, while she herself flexibly handles the vanguard and the middle guard.

Blade’s original fighting style is white-arms combat mixed with checks and balances from mid-range. Sword Dance increases the number of hands, and although it does not have firepower, it cuts down on the number of wounds it inflicts. Flying Sword and Sword Geyser are merely supplementary techniques or lucky hits.

「Fugoooooh!!」

Diest, who was evaded again and again by the rushers, each time carving a number of small wounds, shouted angrily and kicked the ground.

A straight line of emotion-driven thrusts. As before, it is easy to avoid. However, Blade is more wary of the Diest’s movements than ever before.

The Diest that started running will continue to go straight until it hits the wall as before. It is difficult for this mass to stop suddenly or change direction if it speeds at full speed. Still, Blade remained vigilant.

She avoided the Diest’ lunge, and just before they passed each other, it happened. The Diest’s side bobbed and bubbled and extended like a spear to the blades. The time was only a fraction of a second, and Blade caught and deflected the blow, which would have been absolutely unavoidable if she had been caught off guard and expected things to continue as before, with the belly of her own sword.

The reason why Blade used only three of her four swords for attacks was simply because if she attacked with her own sword, her body would be carried away by the momentum of the attack, but at the same time, she left it for defensive use as insurance.

Blade’s caution paid off, completely preventing the surprise blow.

Of course, that was not the end of the battle, and the fight to the death continued, with the casualty being blown away by a casualty’s attack due to a loss of concentration, or slowed down by accumulated damage.

Nevertheless, after more than a dozen minutes of mortal combat, Blade prevailed. She defeated the Baron-class Diest. Truly and solely by her own hand.

「Haah… haah…」

Blade lies down on the ground in a heap, as if she is too exhausted to even move. The nighttime residential area gradually faded away and finally transformed into a large, white room.

Blade, who was watching the scene, did not seem surprised. That’s just as well, because this is a training space in the basement of the Magic Bureau, and it was Blade herself who set the field of battle and the strength of the Diest.

「Blade-san, the rest of us are being held up, so please get out as soon as you’re done.」

「I–I know that f–fully well!」

Urged to leave quickly by the fairy managing the training room through the speakers, Blade managed to lift her tired body and leave the training room, despite her broken speech.

A good number of training rooms are available, but even so, on holidays, they are crowded with many Magical Girls, so the time one can secure one is quite short.

The training with the Diest mentioned earlier was also time-limited, and if the time was up, she would be immediately dismissed regardless of whether she won or lost.

Blade sat down on a bench and sipped on a sports drink she had brought with her.

It is partly because she was physically active, but the exchange of life can be draining, even if only for a short time. Although this time it is training and not actually life threatening, the line between the two becomes blurred in her mind when a Diest appears in front of her, and she sometimes felt as if she was really fighting. Blade was also fighting with enthusiasm, somewhat forgetting that it was a training session.

「You’re a sprightly fellow. I’ve been watching you.」

「Hello. Is Peach-san going to train as well?」

It was only after being approached that Blade realized Samurai Peach was there, and she questioned her without even greeting her.

「Yes. Although, I’m waiting for my turn after using it once first thing in the morning.」

「What kind of setting did you have in mind?」

「That was the Marquis-class the other day. Well, you’ll hear the results.」

Blade, sensing by her manner that she must have lost badly, stirred her drink without saying a word.

The scary thing about Diests is that you never know what they will do, but also their endurance. The higher the Diest’s status, the more it regenerates in the blink of an eye, no matter how many times it is mortally wounded, and the bottom is never seen. Some magical girls lose heart and become lackluster in the never-ending battle, while others simply do not have enough magic power and cannot fight anymore.

In the recent battle, Samurai Peach’s attack seemed to go through the Marquis class. It seemed to her that she were fighting the good fight, if not the margin. It is true that it was working to some extent, but it was still nowhere near the limit of regeneration.

Samurai Peach also understood this well as she fought to the end in the training room.

If you just want to buy time, it doesn’t matter because you can save your magic and wait for the rescue to come. However, the original purpose of Magical Girls is to defeat the Diests before they escape to the real world. Sometimes they have to fight not only to buy time, but to overthrow a situation no matter how desperate it is.

「Are you going to do it again with the same setup?」

「No wonder. I’ll try again and again until I win.」

「As always.」

Samurai Peach is not as strong as the best in Phase 2. Still, in the framework of magical girls, she was definitely above the rest, strong enough to be in the top 10%.

Blade has no intention of giving up and will eventually become a witch, but the road ahead is long and uncertain.

「Don’t worry about me. More importantly, are you still going to do it? You got what you came for, didn’t you?」

「Not yet. I have to be able to win for sure, otherwise it’s meaningless.」

In the past, Blade has challenged the Baron class single-handedly many times, but her win rate is about 50%. She has been winning more and more recently, and she is getting more comfortable in the fight, but she is not yet definitely ahead of Baron-class.

Definitely, she will win no matter what happens. Then, once she was satisfied that they have surpassed Baron, she will continue with Vikant and then Earl.

「Good grief, I can’t speak for others.」

Samurai Peach looks at Blade, who is full of competitive spirit, and giggles happily.

“I guess we are both competitive and stubborn,” she said.