Kingdom and Harem

In a vacant lot in Red Town’s back alley, the sounds of clashing metal echoed repeatedly.

“Ha, ha, ha, hahaha!! This is so exciting!! Adine!”

“Glad to hear that! I’m fighting for my life though!!”

Just when I thought I had parried the blade coming from the left, she thrust the pole from the right.

When I blocked her slashes from above, she attempted a strike from below.

Irijina’s seamless attacks forced me to take a defensive stance.

The spear was superior to the sword in two areas.

The first was, obviously, the length of its reach. The second was the ability to attack with both of its ends, the blade and the pole.

Irijina’s lance was somewhat shorter than the ones used by soldiers in field battles. Thanks to its reduced length, she could spin it and use centrifugal force to unleash continuous attacks.

In the time I took to swing my sword once, Irijina could perform two attacks with her weapon’s blade and pole. She was a lot faster and agile than me, which meant that I was at a massive disadvantage in terms of attack frequency. I was hit countless of times but I was saved due to my full bodied armour.

“What’s wrong!? Is this all the you amount to!?”

Irijina was probably confident in her superiority: she shouted as she continued attacking, without leaving me any time to regain my balance.

“Hah, I can’t act uncool before a beautiful woman like you! Guess I should put in some effort!”

I dodged Irijina’s pole strike and used my free hand to perform a palm thrust. My target was the center of Irijina’s spear, the axis of its rotations.

“Khuh!?”

No matter how fast she spun her weapon, as long as she rotated in a circle, there was an axis about the center.

Since the axis did not move, there was no way to evade my strike.

Irijjna took the full brunt of the impact and was knocked backward.

“Impressive…! To see through my lance in such a short time…!”

“I excel at finding a woman’s vulnerable spots after all!!”

I used the tip of my sword to flick one of the pebbles at my feet, sending it flying.

While it was just a pebble, if it hit someone’s forehead at that speed, it was enough to knock them out.

“Whah!?”

Irijina hurriedly blocked the attack coming from beyond my sword’s range.

It was finally my turn. I continued bombarding her with pebbles, without giving her one second of pause.

“Tch! Ah! You sure are nimble, aren’t you!!”

Irijjna gradually came closer, while parrying my stone bullets.

I stepped backward as she did, so the distance between us did not change.

I continued flicking stones as I moved, of course. I wasn’t going to get in range of her blasted lance ever again.

“Haha, I admit it feels nice to be chased around by such a pretty woman!”

“Grr, damn you and your tricks….! Time for a change of plans…”

Irijina stopped parrying the pebbles, retreated a bit, and wielded her lance in a different stance.

She looked full of openings at first glance: my stones were hitting her shoulders and legs, but she didn’t seem affected.

"What’s going on…?"

I had a bad feeling and concentrated more on her movements.

The next instant, I found that my instincts were right on the money.

“Whoah!!?”

Irijina thrusted her lance forward. She attacked me from the left and the right, and I could not dodge. When I thought I was saved by my full bodied armour, she inserted the tip of the spear into my helmet's opening and grazed my face, which started dripping blood.

My face was twisted in anger.

I finally met a breathtaking beauty, but she turned out to be a killer sent to take my life, and was a skillful spear wielder.

“…you’re right, it’s going to be hard to take you alive.”

“You make it sound like it’d be easy to kill me. Hehehe, you sure can make my body and soul burn…! I almost want to embrace you and give you a kiss.”

“I’d gladly accept that, anytime!”

“Oh, I will — but to your corpse!!”

Irijjna swung her lance multiple times, creating a dummy attack each time.

Once again, I was forced on the defensive.

"She really is one hell of a woman…!" I thought. She reminded me of Sekrit, beautiful spy from the empire. However, obviously Irijina was a lot weaker than Sekrit.

The situation was deadly, but I wasn’t really worried.

I couldn’t counterattack immediately, but I was sure she couldn’t continue such a barrage forever.

“How long are you going to run around!? Didn’t you want to capture me alive?”

“Nah, I’m fine just running. You’re going to collapse any moment anyway.”

“What did you say!?”

Irijina’s well-formed eyebrows rose.

"I’ve fought a few times against fighters more.skillful than me, I know that you can’t just attack forever. Eventually you’ll run out of strength." I taunted her.

“You’ve been swinging that lance a lot already, and I know that you’re getting tired. If you wipe your sweat in that sexy way, anyone could tell.”

“Ngh…”

Irijina had been swinging her lance with reckless abandon the whole time, but after using its magic tool abilities she started sweating profusely.

Judging from the fact that her legs, exposed by the slits of her dress, were clearly sweating too, she had to be fairly fatigued already.

“I don’t even need to attack. I’ll just wait till you collapse, then bring you back home with me.”

“Oh? Do you really think you can dodge my snakes until I run out of energy?”

“Yup, without breaking a sweat either.”

I scoffed and taunted Irijina, then pointed a finger at her.

She probably never fought an opponent who could stand for such long time like me. 

Her fighting style was simply too straightforward. Trump cards should be kept hidden till the last moment: but she completely lacked such tactics and schemes.

Irijina was quiet for a while, then finally spoke.

“…I see. This was a learning experience.”

“Really. You can surrender anytime, you know.”

She suddenly became a lot faster.

“If you have so much confidence in yourself, try to dodge this!! Taste my power to the fullest!!”

“Yeah, no way…I can’t dodge that.”

It was physically impossible to dodge such a quick attacks in this heavy armour. So I had to give up on any evasion attempts.

I received her heavy attacks and hit the speechless Irijina with a kick. 

“Gah…!!”

Maybe because she had run out of energy after attacking to the fullest, Irijina couldn’t move and my kick hit her squarely in the abdomen, sending her flying.

Her heirloom spear fell from her hands and rolled away from her.

Irijina managed to pull herself up on her feet and squeezed the words out.

"You have such strong arms and legs. Why didn't you just receive my attacks with the full bodied armour and capture me at the beginning?"

“I couldn’t have captured you alive though. I promised, right? I’m going to drag you to an inn.”

Even disregarding the speedy movement, Irijina was a master of the spear. If I did that, I might have not been able to exhaust her like this and capture her unscathed.

“I see…so you were holding back from the start. Haha…so you want to make me yours that badly…?”

“I believe you are a woman worthy of risking my life for, yeah.”

“I must say…it doesn’t feel bad to be so sought after…aah, honestly…that strength of yours is just irresistible…”

After muttering such words, Irijina collapsed on the ground again. She had completely lost consciousness.

I put my sword back into my back and lifted her body up.

“Hmm, lighter than expected.”

I leisurely observed her body from head to toe, then snorted, satisfied.

“As excellent as I thought…to be able to find women like her is what makes nightlife worth living."

An orange haired girl stepped out of the shadows. Reina, the thief.

“You’ve been there for a while, right? You could have given me a hand there.”

“Dear, please. I could not join a battle of such level with my meager skills. Heehee.” Reina said naughtily.

“I have a new job for you. Do you have time now?”

“Naturally, dear. With the world as peaceful as it is these days, people like me have very little work, unfortunately.”

“Really. Well, first of all, carry my luggage.”

“ Luggage?”

I motioned with my chin at Irijina's heirloom spear lying on the ground.

“I have my hands full, as you can see. Pick that up and follow me to the inn. I have to take care of the lady until she recovers.”

She might have been hurt in the battle, so I had the duty to watch over her very closely and take good care of her, after all.

“Ah…hee…that’s your request, sir?”

“Yeah, for today. That’s my top priority.”

Reina was perplexed, but my answer was firm.

No matter what work requests I had, nothing was more important than a beautiful woman’s body.

“Heehee…is that so…”

Reina seemed a bit dejected but did not protest as she obediently picked up the spear and followed me.

I looked up and noticed that the moon had reached its zenith,

“This is a really good night.”

So I whispered, enthralled, as I caressed Irijina’s beautiful thighs, damp with sweat.