The Principle of a Philosopher by Eternal Fool “Asley”

Barun rushed toward his opponent, while Pochi stayed put in her ready stance, half of her attention seeming to be on something else…?

What is she doing? Pochi’s eyes… look pretty crossed?

“Hype Up, Title Up!”

Barun muttered his spells as he lunged forward.

Was that Swift magic? All I saw him holding was a dagger though…

And it was all metal, so technically, there was no way it could be a staff. Wait, no, maybe there was…

Hmm? Could it be that the dagger’s scabbard on his waist was acting as the staff?

…Yup, seems like it – it’s got an emblem affixed to its pointed end.

Man, first Lina, and now this guy… young people nowadays sure love to come up with novel ideas.

Still, with the ‘staff’ shaved down to such a small size, would the Swift Magic be as effective?

Now I’ve learned something interesting. The next chance I get, I’ll make sure to buy some cheap staves and do some experimenting.

“Ryse, A-ryse! Hype Up!”

“Wait, Pochi, how’d you-?!”

Seriously, where’d she cast that out of?!

She’s drooling and sticking out her tongue… which means…

“Hahahaha! How’d you even draw Spell Circles with the fangs in your mouth?! That was awesome!”

“Thank you for the compliment, sir!”

At the same time, Pochi jumped backwards, opening some distance between her and Barun. However, to offset that, Barun sprung himself forward once again.

At first, it seemed that Barun would close the gap with just that one leap, but it turned out that he had taken Pochi too lightly.

“Ngh-!”

This time, Pochi held the superior speed. Even with only Hype Up, she already was faster than Barun and his two support spells.

And for the record, Pochi’s base speed was greater than mine. It’s going to be tough to top THAT.

Pochi utilized the broken pillars around the basement to hop around as Barun chased her. The distance between them gradually increased.

If this goes on, Barun might have to resort to using his true warrior skills.

“Hah!”

There it is – he just enhanced his physical abilities with Fortify Strength. Then Fortify Resilence, reducing the fatigue build up in his body. And last but not least, Tempest. With that, most of the air resistance around his body was nullified. Now… let’s see how it goes.

“Ryse, A-ryse! Title Up!”

Heh, of course Pochi would use her fangs for another Circle – quite quickly, no less. She’d have to deal with her crossed eyes while drawing, but still, that was effective.

The two combatants leapt, the distance between them neither closing nor opening.

It seemed that, with those fortifications on both sides, they have more or less achieved equal speed.

“Tch-! Dah, dah!”

“Hmph! Hah! Hah!”

Barun threw the blades that he had been keeping sheathed on his thighs.

Pochi swung her tail at the ground as she almost landed, quickly springing herself upwards once more.

Hmm, looks like she didn’t have much trouble dodging the attacks. Impressive – or rather, just what I’d expect from a beast’s wild fighting style.

As for Barun, it seemed that his warrior fighting style was the same as Betty’s. Perhaps I should ask if Betty would like to learn to do some magic as well?

Women naturally possessed a higher affinity for magic, and she’s got quick wits, so I’m sure she wouldn’t take long to remember some simple formulas.

“Gotcha!”

“Wha- that’s what you were aiming for?!”

Barun, having read Pochi’s new direction beforehand, threw a blade in the path of her predicted trajectory. Doesn’t look like Pochi will be able to dodge this in time.

What now, Pochi?

“GAAAAHH!!”

“What?!”

Right, she’s got her breath attack – that was enough to flick the blade away.

Weakening and compressing the breath enabled her to achieve what she wanted without much recoil, and in turn, not interrupting the flow of her movement.

If she were to use the full power of her breath, she would have been pushed all the way to the other side of the arena… which would have been fine and all, barring the damage to this building and potentially the surrounding city blocks.

Hmm, I suppose I could attribute all that to how well I had trained her.

“Eh-hem, it’s all thanks to Melchi teaching me this move!”

…Well, apparently she thinks Melchi’s training has done her more good than mine.

I mean, that’s not funny, damn it!

Anyways, since Pochi was able to dodge everything so far, Barun’s face was starting to show signs of impatience – or rather, annoyance.

The guy’s personality seems to be closer to Hornel’s rather than Betty’s.

Looking at him analytically, particularly at the attitude he had been exhibiting thus far, I’m inclined to question… is he really fit to be one of the Six Braves?

Well, I suppose that was also within the reasonable range of expectation for improvement.

Barun has been dishing out a great variety of attacks, but Pochi reacted accordingly to all of them.

After a while, by the time Barun wiped the sweat around his mouth with the back of his hand, a great change occurred to the flow of battle.

“Ow-?!”

Pochi suddenly let out a goofy cry.

Something hit her hip? Is that… a pebble? What’s going on?

With just that delay, Barun cracked a grin and instantly closed the gap between them.

“High-frequency Blade!”

“Wha-!”

As soon as I heard that… attack announcement, I realized that it was the one skill I’d dreaded to see in a match against that Barun man-child.

The High-frequency Blade – the technique utilized an intense vibration of the user’s shoulder and arm for the slash, giving it tremendous power.

Among cutting-based techniques for focused points, it was considered one of the strongest, if not straight up the strongest one.

Damn it, I can’t back you up now, Pochi! You better dodge it!

“Hmph!”

Pochi let out a powerful shout and pulled off a move neither I nor Barun expected of her.

“-?! Gigantification?! Tch-!”

“GRAAAAAHH!! THAT HURT!!”

That’s it! It may have been a powerful attack, but it only targeted small points of impact – it only wounded where it connected.

In this case, by gigantifying, she had prevented the attack from reaching her vitals and made it so that the wound wouldn’t be too deep where she was hit.

Pochi, now lightly wounded, gave Barun no time to react as she rushed to bite and hold Barun’s torso in her mouth. Tight enough to kill, no less.

“YEWHEVEANEIDEAHOWMASHDATHURT?! DAYEU?!”

Uh, nope, I couldn’t tell what she was trying to say.

Barun was now rendered immobile in a position that could spell his death at any moment. His arms were held from the elbow down, leaving only his legs free for use as far as attacks were concerned.

However, if he were to try doing so, Pochi’s fangs would surely dig deep into his flesh.

“I’d say the match is over, Sir Barun.”

“Ugh! Yeah, sure! Lemme go already!”

“You heard the man, Pochi.”

However, Pochi did not release Barun from her mouth.

Hmm? What’s going on? I turned to where Pochi was looking at – which turned out to be Ricky, the Spicy Monkey.

Huh… Oh, I almost forgot…

“Ricky, could you please announce the end of the match?”

“…Match over.”

As unsatisfied as Ricky sounded, his announcement was still absolute, prompting Pochi to shake Barun off, landing him a short distance away.

She sure is cautious. Unlike me.

If Ricky hadn’t called the match first, Barun might have launched a counter-attack as soon as he was out of Pochi’s mouth… whoops, no time for that – I’ve got to heal Pochi first.

The wound isn’t too deep, so…

“Rise, Middle Cure.”

“Thank you, sir! …And you, Sir Barun! I demand an explanation for the pebble that was thrown at me back there!”

“…Whatever are you talking about?”

Barun replied with a non-answer while he healed himself up.

“Master! I can tell he’s playing dumb, so he’s yours!”

You sure are bad when it comes to this kind of interaction, huh?

“Sir Barun sent a signal that time when he wiped his mouth… likely to Ricky. I’d never expected Ricky to fight, but he IS a Familiar, and no one said he wouldn’t be participating. At the end of the day, that ended up being just a little insurance, though.”

“I see! Now I just remembered Sir Barun saying ‘examiners are more or less free to set their scoring standard’ – this must be what he meant!”

“……Hmph.”

Right, and what an unpleasant scoring standard that was.

Well, this IS the Rank-up Evaluation to Rank S, so… perhaps I should have expected it.

“All right, let’s get to the next test, then!”

Pochi’s voice echoed through the Cathedral. Following that were two pairs of footsteps, one from our front and the other from our back, approaching from the first floor.

The one who appeared in front of us was… wha- what in the blazes?!

“Ah-! Don’t look, Master!”

My eyes were promptly blocked off by Pochi’s paws.

Damn, so squishy!

But yes, from the brief look I’d managed to get, the one who appeared before us had an appearance that warranted such a reaction from Pochi.

Of all the years I’ve lived, this might have been my first time I’d seen such… dynamites.

“Huhuhu, looks like Barun alone wasn’t enough for this job.”

The owner of the spicy voice, who I caught a glimpse of through the minuscule gap between the squishy paws’ fingers, was a beautiful, pale-skinned warrior lady.

Her chest seemed ready to bust through her… lightweight equipment at any moment, and her lower body was barely even obscured by any… anything.

“DON’T LOOOKKKK!!”

Oh no – I think Pochi’s nails are starting to dig into my face.