How could [Gale] beat [The Goddess's Chariot]?!
The answer: dirty tactics — outrageously dirty tactics!
Inside the Divine Mirror, the deities and every one of the spectators saw it, and not a single one of them had ever imagined
that a member of the Goddess of Justice's Familia would do something like this.
But all that could be said was that they didn't understand a thing about what [Justice] truly was. Justice meant studying everything, and using everything.
This, too, was something Ryuu had learned from her former friend.
And so——
the spectators witnessed an unbelievably "dirty" battle, one in which absolutely no means were spared.
Within the snow-covered mountain forest.
Allen Fromel and Ryuu had first been "separated" — the two of them, having fallen from the sky, ended up a great distance apart, and this had quite simply created an utterly perfect set of conditions for Ryuu.
Furthermore.
Allen Fromel was injured as well.
Most of those injuries, of course, had nothing to do with Ryuu — they were inflicted by his own doing.
The Cat Person youth's magic boosted his own speed without limit, and as a result, it would absolutely exceed the load his own body could bear. It did not even need to be pushed to the extreme — every single minute and every single second after activation would inflict severe wear and tear on his body.
Not to mention, that last strike of his just now had been blocked.
The recoil and impact from it had to be absorbed by Allen Fromel himself, and that was what had left him in this state.
On the other side, Ryuu's situation was, by contrast, far better.
The Spirit's power truly was strong — completely and utterly so. Not only had it defended against Allen Fromel's earlier strike, it had also allowed the maiden to land safely.
And very soon, following the tracks left across the snowfield,
Ryuu took the initiative and sought out where Allen Fromel was — only that, by this point, one of them stood in the light, and the other in the shadows.
And the elf maiden had also begun her "new tactics."
Which is to say — sparing no means whatsoever.
Making use of special "medicine pouches" that could attract monsters, she drew the monsters of the mountain forest in to surround Allen Fromel first;
Then, using Flame Stones along with all manner of bombs, poisons, and even reagents of a corrosive nature, she laid traps for her opponent;
Longbows, short crossbows, and even the "firearms" she had obtained from Isagi were all indispensable.
Hiding in the shadows, every so often, she would launch ranged attacks at Allen Fromel — who was hemmed in by the monsters — and then immediately vanish, shifting her position before her opponent could locate her.
Ryuu even had the sensation of having returned to her old days, back when she had hunted and assassinated members of the Dark Familia.
Compared to her own skills and magic,
at this moment the maiden was relying far more on all manner of strange, miscellaneous tools.
Among them,
the majority were still those sponsored by Isagi — not only Legion Prosthetic Arms of all sorts of uses, but also even more powerful bombs, throwing knives, and all manner of other odds and ends.
This, too, had been her former friend's justice.
Come to think of it, it was actually rather similar to what Isagi had said — if justice was to be carried out, then one had to become the strongest of all — which is to say, what justice represented was "victory."
And so, in order to obtain victory, one had to rely on all manner of power.
That required brains.
And, even more so, all kinds of strange and miscellaneous tools.
In this moment, Ryuu felt as though she had at last understood what her former dear friend Lyra had meant when she had told her that she herself needed to be a little more "cunning."
The battle between Ryuu and Allen Fromel was witnessed by all of the spectators.
And almost every last one of them cried out at it in disbelief.
Earlier the two of them had clearly still been locked in such a ferocious bout, and yet in the next moment, it had become an almost entirely one-sided affair — Allen Fromel was like a piece of prey lost amid the heavy snow, subjected to Ryuu's near-ceaseless harassment and sniping.
Could this really even count as a battle?!
Of course it could.
At the very least, the final victor was Ryuu.
After watching Allen Fromel tumble into one of the pit-traps she had laid down, and then be knocked unconscious by the "toxic gas" within it,
even Ryuu herself felt a slight sense of disbelief — but reality was indeed just so.
Meanwhile, on the other side.
The battle between Lefiya and Hedin held even less suspense than that.
Once [White Elf Magic Wand] had confirmed that his magic was utterly incapable of breaking through that holy relic of the Elven race held in Lefiya's hand, he resolutely chose to "surrender."
Or, put another way, he simply stopped fighting altogether.
Because there truly was no point to it, and besides, he was also well aware that they were not today's protagonists.
As for the battle itself,
Hedin was clearly far more interested in the holy relic in the elf maiden's hand.
After all, it was the relic of a former Saintess.
And he himself was an elven royal who carried the bloodline of the Saintess — Hedin's skill, "Saintess Bloodline," was proof of that very fact.
And thus, according to the rules of the War Game,
amidst the snow-covered mountain forest, the carriages driven by the two goddesses, Freya and Loki, came to a halt.
They had to wait there in place for twenty minutes before they could continue onward.
In one stroke,
Astrea Familia had wiped clean the deficit that had been caused by their earlier sending out of Haruhime and Heith — those two sure-loss matches.
And because of the youth's plan, which had made Freya Familia's carriage clear the way through the deep snow up front, while his own side simply trailed behind and "reaped the rewards,"
the result was that the original gap between the two carriages had, in fact, never been all that wide.
With the same twenty-minute span,
this time, Goddess Astrea quickly outstripped Loki's carriage, leaving it cast far behind in a single move.
And on the other side,
Isagi was directing the little Spirit Yuufi to swiftly clear the way ahead of the carriage, blowing the heavy snow blanketing the mountain road off to either side, so that — unlike before — it would no longer restrict the carriage's speed, which would have ended up turning his own side into the ones clearing the way for the Freya Familia's carriage instead.
All at once, the situation had shifted into the Goddess of Justice's side's favor.
But that did not really matter.
Because the most crucial [Duel] of all had yet to be fought — and whether it was Isagi or any of the goddesses, every single one of them knew it perfectly well at this moment.
The truly most important, most pivotal "core" of this War Game.
"Freya Familia hereby requests a [Duel]!"
As the host's roaring voice once again rang out from overhead, Isagi felt a flicker of something like surprise.
"This time, the one stepping out is the city's strongest adventurer!"
"[Warlord] Ottar!!"
The Goddess of Beauty had laid her trump card on the table outright — something the youth had not anticipated at all.
Because,
if she had wanted to guarantee this fight with absolute certainty, then Ottar ought to have come out last — or rather, she should have waited for the Goddess of Justice's side to send out their own combatant first, and only then sent Ottar in to meet him.
But evidently, Goddess Freya did not care for such "roundabout" ways of playing.
The Goddess of Beauty was also a Goddess of War.
She likewise symbolized the very "glory" that the fallen heroic spirits of battle bore upon themselves.
[Warrior] was a noble word — and so, the Goddess of Beauty was certain that, once Ottar took the field, the one to come and meet him in combat would inevitably be Isagi, and could not possibly be anyone else.
If the youth chose to evade the challenge.
Then——
her opponent would no longer be qualified to serve as the [Excelia] for her Familia's child.
That was the Goddess of Beauty's purest line of thought.
Only a [Warrior] could defeat another [Warrior], and only a [Warrior] was fit to go and fight against another [Warrior].
And of course, Isagi would honor the engagement.
Because this had been the main course of this War Game from the very start.
And let no one forget — Isagi's purpose in taking part in the War Game had, from beginning to end, been a very simple one: to truly "punch out Loki and stomp on Freya," and to make the Astrea Familia the strongest in the city.
That being the case,
what could possibly prove this point better than defeating the city's current strongest adventurer head-on?
____
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