"Oh… Then prove it to me!" Aislyra replied, her voice brimming with excitement.
Without another word, she launched into a brutal barrage of attacks with her Ice Burn. Every single strike was both faster and more powerful than any attack the silver-haired elf had unleashed earlier in the match.
But after only a few seconds—which would normally have been more than enough for her to defeat her childhood friend once she had closed the distance—Aislyra found herself extremely, yet pleasantly, surprised.
Emeralda was still standing.
And she looked far from defeated.
Using her emerald-covered bow, Emeralda managed to deflect practically every one of Aislyra's relentless strikes.
The silver-haired elf immediately recognized the style. Those movements were strikingly similar to the technique Brasto used whenever he deflected her own attacks.
But that alone failed to explain how Emeralda was managing to avoid virtually every strike without suffering anything more than obvious fatigue. It was true that Brasto, against the current speed and power behind her attacks, would have been capable of deflecting every single one of them without taking any damage. However, he could accomplish such a feat only because of his overwhelming physical strength and his superhuman mastery of the Physical Enhancement spell.
Yet even now, Aislyra could clearly tell that Emeralda, despite all the progress she had made, possessed neither physical strength comparable to her master's nor anywhere near that level of mastery over the Physical Enhancement spell.
'If Emeralda had actually managed to achieve a degree of precision even remotely comparable to that old man's in such a short amount of time, I'd end this match immediately and go ask her master, undoubtedly the greatest user of the Physical Enhancement spell I've ever encountered, a few questions myself…' thought the queen's bodyguard as she carefully observed the increasingly strained expression on Emeralda's face after each successive strike.
'But that doesn't seem to be what's happening… It's almost as if every attack I make—even if only by a few millimeters—fails to land exactly where I intended…'
Aislyra pondered the matter for another second, and a couple of possible explanations came to mind.
However, she wasn't fully convinced by any of them, especially because her attacks were clearly not completely ineffective. So the only option left was to keep pressing her assault with even greater speed and even more overwhelming force.
Right?!
Emeralda, meanwhile, was completely stunned.
'So... what she was using before still wasn't anywhere close to the full strength this muscle-brained woman can unleash with ordinary sword swings?!!'
Having never managed to last more than a few seconds against Aislyra in close combat, she had been utterly unprepared for this. Above all, if the strength Aislyra was using still wasn't her maximum, then the trick Emeralda was relying on to imitate her master's technique would soon become completely useless.
During the period she had trained under Brasto's guidance, Emeralda herself had asked him to teach her his famous technique—a method he could employ with practically any weapon—that allowed him to deflect the attacks of opponents who were as much as ten times stronger than he was.
Naturally, she had requested it for one reason alone:
To finally defeat Aislyra the next time they crossed blades.
But, exactly as Brasto himself had warned her, it quickly proved impossible to master in only a few months if she attempted to use it exactly as he did.
To achieve the incredible level of precision in controlling the Physical Enhancement spell that the technique demanded would require her at least one hundred years of dedicated training. And even then, there would still be no guarantee that she could ever reach her master's level.
So, together, they tried to devise a way for her to reproduce the technique—even if only partially—by combining it with abilities she had already mastered.
Then, after an entire month spent refining her control over her Wind Guide spell, once she had more or less reached the level of precision she possessed today, Brasto suddenly came up with an idea as he watched her train.
The Wind Guide spell can be used on any object or person; it simply tends to be useless on things that are too heavy because, although it is possible to apply wind to them, the force generated is not strong enough to make them float. However, depending on the object's weight and the strength of the wind produced, moving it is by no means impossible. Even so, with extremely heavy objects—or those held firmly in place—the maximum displacement is usually no more than a few millimeters.
So the idea Brasto came up with was to combine the movements of his own technique with the Wind Guide spell.
In practice, besides reproducing the movements required by Brasto's technique, the user supplements its imperfections by using the wind generated through Wind Guide just before the opponent's attack lands, altering its trajectory—even if only by a few millimeters.
By doing so, it becomes possible for Emeralda to reproduce Brasto's technique, albeit in a weaker and incomplete form, allowing the her to deflect virtually any melee attack from an opponent.
However, because it is merely an inferior version, this combination of martial arts and magic possesses several limitations that the original technique does not.
Brasto's original technique allowed him to deflect virtually any physical attack, provided the opponent's strength was no more than ten times greater than his own.
By contrast, since Emeralda's variation requires the Wind Guide spell to change the trajectory of the opponent's attacks, it becomes completely ineffective against attacks that are either too heavy or delivered with excessive force. In those situations, only the incomplete martial technique remains, and by itself, it is nowhere near enough to protect Emeralda from any attack.
As a result, the strongest attacks Emeralda's version can reliably deflect are generally those carrying no more than roughly five times her own physical strength. And if the weapon her opponent is wielding is particularly heavy, even that limit decreases considerably—as was happening right now.
Furthermore, unlike Brasto's original technique, which requires only a single spell—the Physical Enhancement spell—Emeralda's imitation demands the simultaneous use of two spells. Consequently, it consumes far more mana and greatly reduces the number of consecutive attacks she can successfully defend against.
'Damn it! Damn it, Aislyra! Are you seriously telling me that the very first thing you do when you can't figure out why your attacks aren't landing is simply increase their power?! WHAT ARE YOU, SOME MAD OVER BEAST?!!!!'
Those were the frantic thoughts racing through the golden-haired elf's mind as she clenched her teeth so hard that one of her molars had already cracked.
As the speed and power behind the silver-haired elf's attacks continued to rise, the wind she controlled could no longer alter the trajectory of Ice Burn by more than a single millimeter.
That was enough to make her defense no longer completely impenetrable.
Small cuts—each one instantly freezing over—began to appear across Emeralda's body, while her body temperature gradually continued to drop.
Perhaps because of that, or perhaps because of the overwhelming strain placed upon both her body and mind as she desperately struggled to imitate her master's technique as perfectly as possible...
An illusion suddenly appeared before her eyes.
In it, standing where she herself should have been, was her beloved Fortore, locked in close combat against Aislyra.
The two of them were exchanging smiles filled with pure excitement.
And even though Emeralda knew such an expression was utterly impossible for someone with Aislyra's personality, those smiles looked, to her jealous eyes, like expressions of nothing less than unrestrained sexual excitement.
'DAMN IT! DAMN IT! WHY ARE YOU THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS TO BE SO CLOSE TO MY BELOVED?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'
That single thought completely consumed the mind of the woman hopelessly in love the instant the illusion disappeared.
And it was precisely because of that thought that her mind drifted back to memories of her beloved... and of the woman she had long proclaimed to be her rival in love.
At first, my rivalry with Aislyra wasn't all that intense.
We argued often, and since she had been unbelievably strong ever since she was little, she almost always won. The only exception was whenever we competed to see who could capture a particular animal or Over Beast first. In those contests, I was sometimes able to beat her.
We had known each other since we were about eight years old.
Since Her Majesty Sequoria was still queen at the time and already possessed an exceptionally open-minded outlook, she allowed her daughter to play with whomever she wished. And because my family is one of the most influential noble families in the kingdom, it was only natural that we frequently ended up playing together.
Although, I have to admit that, back then, my personality was... how should I put it... rather thorny. So I'll admit that the only friend my own age I had was that tomboyish princess. She was the only one who never had any trouble putting up with my... "unique" personality.
I hate to admit it, but both now and all those years ago, Aislyra has undoubtedly been my best friend.
But at least from my point of view—because I'm sure very little has changed for Ms. Muscle—it all began to change on one summer day when we were fourteen years old.
It was the day we decided to go hunting in the Yggdrasill Forest.
The day before, Aislyra had warned me that, since she wanted to hunt bigger prey this time, she would be bringing along a friend of hers—someone who, according to her, was extremely skilled.
I was leaning against a tree, waiting—as usual—for that perpetually late idiot when I finally saw the two of them approaching.
"EME, I HOPE YOU'RE READY, BECAUSE TODAY WE'RE DEFINITELY GOING TO CATCH THE LEADER OF THE FOREST!!!" Aislyra shouted as she ran toward me with a huge smile plastered across her face, waving one arm enthusiastically without showing the slightest intention of slowing down.
There was, of course, no actual leader of the forest in the Forest of Yggdrasill. The forest was simply far too vast to be ruled by a single creature. What Aislyra called the "leader of the forest" was an Over Beast Boar covered in countless terrifying scars across its face—a beast that had already escaped from us on numerous occasions. At most, it could have been considered the "leader" of the relatively small and fairly safe section of the forest where Aislyra and I had spent our childhood playing together.
Aislyra was wearing a set of light leather armor, and unfortunately, it was already obvious that she was the younger sister of Her Majesty Alberia and the daughter of Her Majesty Sequoria.
Damn you, you useless fat!!
Unlike now, she didn't wear her silver hair tied into that elegant long ponytail of hers. Back then, she always kept it short. It never extended much beyond the nape of her neck. And, except for the rare occasions when she came accompanied by her older sister—who sometimes joined us to make sure we didn't do anything excessively reckless or chaotic—her silvery hair was always a complete mess before we had even started playing.
"So that's why you told me it was going to be a big hunt... But are you really sure we'll manage to catch him this time? Last week marked the ninetieth time he escaped from us... AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOT TO CALL ME EME?! MY FULL NAME IS BEAUTIFUL, AND I'M VERY PROUD OF IT, SO I'D REALLY APPRECIATE IT IF YOU COULD FINALLY LEARN TO USE IT!!!" I replied, my voice carrying just the slightest hint of irritation.
"Ehhhhhhhhhh... but it's too long..." that idiot complained.
Then, as though she had already forgotten the entire conversation, she continued,
"Anyway, don't worry! With the aid I brought along today, I'm sure even the leader of the forest won't be able to escape!" she declared before pointing enthusiastically toward the guy standing beside her.
He was an elf around our age with short white hair and, in my personal opinion, an already incredibly handsome face, framed by blue eyes in which I felt I could have happily lost myself for days.
And he was wearing something you would never expect to see on a fourteen-year-old elf:
The armor of the Royal Knights.