Magic & Slime Versus Muscle & Steel

Petra charges toward me, with Pepper not far behind. I fire off a volley of boulders, but Petra’s perception aura lets her effortlessly sense and weave between all my attacks. Pepper, on the other hand, is durable enough to simply barrel straight through them, taking minimal damage.

Petra leaps into the air, coming down on me with an overhead smash. I use wind magic to blast Pudding and me out of the way, sending us flying in opposite directions. Her offensive aura is so strong that her attack leaves a small crater in the ground, but from what I saw on exam day, she’s not even close to attacking at full power.

Well, at least she’s being kinda considerate of me.

Pepper joins the assault, and they take turns swinging at me, allowing Petra to conserve her mana while I’m forced to rapidly burn through mine using wind magic to dodge in a panic.

The way they swap back and forth, their teamwork is incredible.

Pudding, however—while their attention is focused on me—starts firing slime shots at them from behind, made stickier by the herb I fed him.

Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo! Ptoo!

Petra dodges out of the way. Pepper gets hit, but manages to tear his limbs free.

“Attack her summon!” Petra commands.

Pepper turns around and charges at Pudding.

Petra continues swinging at me, her speed aura so great that I’m only able to avoid each attack by mere inches—and it’s only a matter of time until I slip up.

If that happens, the match will be over in a single blow.

I glance over at Pudding, who’s bouncing around, also just barely managing to dodge. Pepper’s so big, how is he able to move so fast?!

Pudding continues covering him in slime, gradually slowing him down, but Pepper keeps powering through it.

I’m not faring any better against Petra. Now that I’m at close range, I’m finally able to hit her with a couple boulders and fireballs, but her defensive aura allows her to mostly shake them off.

I can’t believe how much of a menace merely being competent in all four martial schools makes her—it’s like she doesn’t even have any weak points! And even worse…

…I still haven’t seen the half of it.

Petra jumps back.

“Not bad, Nora! You’re pretty spry for such a twig! But let’s see you try this on for size.”

“Ogre Magic: Red Rush!”

A blaze of crimson mana emanates from Petra. Steam rises off of her as the sweat evaporates from her body.

Uh oh.

She dashes back in, her speed and senses even sharper than before.

After just a handful of swings, things become crystal clear—I won’t be able to keep up. The only way we can win this is if we take out Pepper first, then Pudding and me fight Petra together.

I have to escape!

I send myself soaring backwards.

“Looks like we got a runner!” she shouts.

I start blasting wind magic from my body so I can fly over to—

“Gotcha!”

As I turn away from Petra, Pepper is right beneath me, swinging his club upward as hard as he can.

Dangit! She wasn’t taunting me earlier—it was a command for Pepper!

Just before his club hits me, I blast a huge cloud of dust straight into his face, engulfing us both. He reflexively shuts his eyes and misses, but swings with so much force that the club flies right out of his hands and into the air.

I drop my wand and grab onto part of the club that Pudding managed to land a sticky shot on. It yanks me upward along with it—dozens of feet into the air.

Petra and Pepper look around.

“Where the hell did she go?!”

As I plummet from the sky, I try to steer where I’m going to land by firing off wind magic from my body. Then, just before I come come crashing down—

“Sorry, Pepper!”

“Groo—OOF!”

Right as he looks up, I bonk him right in the noggin.

He sways dizzily before collapsing. He tries to get back up, but his body gives out.

My strike wasn’t enough to de-summon him—talk about one tough monster—but it was enough to leave him immobilized. Just in case, though, I blast him away from us with a burst of wind.

Pudding and I turn our attention toward Petra. Now that it’s two on one, we might actually—

Uh oh.

Petra’s hunched over, fists trembling.

I think I might have really made her angry—

“Hell yeah!”

…What?

“You took him out in one blow! I can’t believe it! Even I’ve never done that! You must be packing a lot more muscle than I thought!”

“Uh, that’s not what—”

“Guess big things really can come in small packages, I’m impressed!”

“...Does that mean you’ll let me go?”

“HAHAHAHAHAHA—no.”

A twisted grin spreads across her face.

“It means I can go all out.”

Petra starts flooding her weapon with absurd amounts of mana.

“Uh, no, I-I promise you, my body really is weak!”

Petra’s not listening anymore. Her mana continues to rage, and every alarm bell in my body is telling me whatever’s about to come next isn’t going to be pretty—or something I can simply dodge.

I’m gonna have to take her head on.

“Pudding!”

He leaps to my side.

“You know what we have to do, right?”

“Squee…”

“I know it’s risky, but it’s the only chance we’ve got…are you with me?”

Pudding steels himself.

“Squee!”

“Alright, let’s do this!”

I hurriedly feed him growth herbs until he reaches several times my height, larger than I’ve ever pushed him before, even during my training with Vincent.

“Ogre Magic: Heaven Splitter!”

With a swing of her club, she sends a massive crimson wave of energy crashing toward us. Dirt and grass explode into the air as it tears across the field, carving a wide path straight toward Pudding and me.

I hop inside Pudding, whose body starts rapidly vibrating as I pour as much mana into him as I can.

“Slime Magic: Shock Absorb—”

The wave crashes into him and stops dead. But slowly, it starts pushing through, Pudding’s body stretching further and further backward as Petra’s attack cuts deeper and deeper. It’s on the cusp of snapping Pudding in two and going straight through me when—

PSSSSSSSSSS!

The attack dissipates with a loud sizzle as Pudding turns crimson, having successfully absorbed the kinetic energy of Petra’s attack.

We did it, Pudding!

“WHA—?!”

Now comes the fun part.

BOING!

Pudding’s body rebounds, slingshotting us right toward Petra. He shrinks along the way until he’s wrapped around just my fist. I blast powerful gusts from my feet, launching myself straight at Petra with everything I’ve got.

“Slime Magic—”

“Not so fast!” Petra twists into a vicious swing, her club screaming toward my side.

“COUNTER—”

Her club brushes against me as I barely slip beneath it with a small burst of wind from my other hand.

“Wha—GGRRRK!”

“IMPACT!”

Petra tries to reinforce her defensive aura, but it’s useless against the full force of her own attack. She’s sent flying into a wall, the impact blasting out an enormous crater and knocking her unconscious on the spot.

As I try to catch my breath, I look over at Pepper. He reaches toward Petra with a worried look, but quickly disappears.

Those two really are a perfect match, huh?