Chapter 274: The Last Boss Being Strong Is Only Natural, But…

When Dinger said that, cheers rose from all around. I could feel an enormous amount of expectation—for these two. That meant I shouldn’t win too easily. The best outcome would be a narrow win for me that still left these two their honor.

Ignoring my calculations, Dinger raised his greatsword diagonally and brought it down with a:

"Hun!!"

The wind pressure was incredible! I showed the wind blown by that pressure as I stepped back. An "Oooh!" voice reached me. Was the knight order all right being like this? I thought, but the sword was swung again; I dodged. It swept; I dodged. The motion was large so I could tell the direction of the sword. I thought he needed to use a shorter sword.

"Eeeeii, you fidgety little—! Don’t just keep running—trade blows—!!"

He shouted, but if I took your sword my own sword would break or disappear. And yet from somewhere a familiar man’s shout came:

"Trade blows fair and square—!!"

That wasn’t His Grace the Duke’s voice, was it? I wanted to believe it wasn’t!

When I struck Dinger’s sword on the follow-through of his swing, Dinger lost his balance. I could have slashed then, but I held back a little. Then:

"Youuu, mocking me—!!"

he roared. If I ran I was yelled at; if I matched swords I was yelled at. What was I supposed to do?

While I was thinking that, last-boss Count von Kirchhoff raised his right hand into the air. A ball of light was born on his palm. It gradually grew. From about five centimeters to about ten. Soon it became about twenty, then about thirty. And it was thrown at me!

"Watch out?!"

I shouted and dodged the ball of light. Count von Kirchhoff’s motion was large and the ball wasn’t as fast as I had expected, so I dodged it easily. But Dinger, who had his back to the Count, took the ball square in the back.

The instant the ball hit his back his face said "Huh, what just happened?", but after a beat the ball burst and his armor became a fireball. Then Dinger screamed:

"Gyaaaaah—!!!!"

He rolled and fell into the stream. A juuuu— sound. Good—the fire went out. Armor bursting into flame was injustice itself, so I had been worried whether water would even put it out. Long ago in the hazardous materials handling exam I learned the three elements of combustion. They taught ignition source, combustible material, and oxygen, and just now it burst into flame without a combustible material! Maybe mana was the combustible? Yeah, that was possible. The moment you could use magic it was injustice itself, so I mustn’t be trapped by knowledge from the previous world!

"Amazing?!"

Lily’s voice. Looking, Lily and Bardos had stopped their hands and were watching.

"Bardos-san, if you’re not careful you’ll take that. I think Lily can dodge, but with armor like that on you won’t be able to, will you?"

Bardos nodded rapidly at my warning.

Dinger, soaked in the stream, seemed to have lost consciousness; he floated face-down in the water.

"Bad! At this rate he’ll drown. Bardos-san, give me a hand!"

"Eh?! Ah, yes!"

Bardos threw his sword aside and ran over. The three of us—me, Lily, and Bardos—lifted Dinger from the stream. But he was so heavy we couldn’t lift him. Water had gotten into the armor, and an unconscious human was terribly, terribly heavy. If it had been a fair young maiden Super Strength would have come out, but a grimy man was a lost cause.

We barely managed to flip him onto his back. We let the current take him, carried him to a place with stones, and rested his head on them.

"Haa—I’m tired—" 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

The words slipped out. Bardos also rolled on the ground, breathing with his whole body. Lily was soaked; the places with leather armor were still all right, but her ass was quite dangerous. You couldn’t see through it, but it was stuck tight.

While we were soaking in the feeling of having finished a job, the spectators hurled heartless jeers:

"Hurry up and fight—!!"

"It isn’t decided yet—!"

If you’re going to say that much, do it yourself—I think even Bardos thought that along with us.

"Let’s treat him. Please take off the armor."

Lily said to Bardos. Lily, who had just crushed a man’s absolute territory under her heel, now said she would treat the enemy’s burns. I thought it was an extremely contradictory act, but the spectators would surely weep watching Lily, so I decided to stay silent.

Bardos began removing Dinger’s armor. Sure enough the skin was burned and blistered.

Now the final confrontation with Count von Kirchhoff awaited me.

That Count von Kirchhoff was raising his hand and making an even larger ball of light. Huh? The hood had come off and the face was exposed. That wasn’t Count von Kirchhoff! It was the Division Head—Division Head Hütter?! What was going on? Where had Count von Kirchhoff gone? Was he hiding behind Hütter? There was no time to search!

Hütter threw the glowing ball at me! Being larger it looked heavy and had no speed. But it was extremely bright so you ended up looking at it.

"Lord Robbie! This side is no good! Dinger-san is here so I can’t move!"

Lily shouted from behind. That meant I had to make it burst at a point away from Dinger. Using full-power Divine Legs I slashed at the ball that had just been launched from Hütter! But the sword’s cutting edge was poor; I couldn’t cut it and ended up pushing it back instead. The surface tension of the ball was high and it didn’t break.

Hitting Hütter right in front of me would be pitiful (his face was pale, perhaps from worry the ball would come back at him), so I bent the sword’s path and flung the ball aside.

The ball hit the plantings and with a baaan!! burst of sound flames roared up. Even from a distance it was hot.

Setting that aside, things wouldn’t progress unless I took down Hütter in front of me. When I tried to step in, with a bari! an ice plate appeared in front of me. Was this a barrier? I smashed it with the sword using raw strength! Whether from my power or not, the first blow cracked it surprisingly easily and the second shattered it to pieces.

"What is this! My all-out ice wall?!"

Hütter put distance between us and looked frustrated. Strange—Hütter looked like he was glowing red. Were Count von Kirchhoff and Division Head Hütter actually the same person? No, that couldn’t be...

Stepping forward over the shattered ice:

"Come forth, wall of stone!!"

He declared it in a voice that could be called a scream, though it cracked a little. An "Ooooh—!" rose from the spectators. It stretched two meters, three meters high. But I could leap to the second and third floors, so that had no effect. Hadn’t he been watching what happened until now?

When I got on the wall and looked down, Hütter wore a frustrated face. Perhaps also because of the light his face was bright red. It wasn’t because of the light-bulb color, right?

"Eeei! Ice spears—!!"

He kindly explained each spell. So they didn’t say Ice Javelin, I thought, while also noting they were fire-and-forget and didn’t home. That is, when I dodged, they rose high into the sky, arced, and fell onto the Count’s mansion roof, destroying it. Together with an "Ahhhh—!" from the spectators.

A huge hole opened in the roof, but it wasn’t my fault.

At that moment a familiar woman’s voice shouted:

"Behind you! Watch out!!"

"Hah?"

I instinctively turned my ear toward the voice. From below behind me, with a gon!! of impact, I was launched into the air.

Let your guard down and the enemy will get you—those words bounced around inside my head.