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Chapter 3-21. Joint battle
Finally I reunited with Reizen.
Sadly, it’s not the time for a happy reunion.
The situation hasn’t changed much.
Now that Reizen is here, I may be able to concentrate on my attack, but I’m still a little worried that I don’t have a grasp of Reizen’s skills.
However, Reizen caught Lequam’s 【 Heat Ray】  with his bare hand.
It doesn’t seem to hurt him at all, and he seems to have a formidable defense.
“Aniki, what’s wrong with that old dude?”
“He may look like that but, currently he is  my enemy.”
“Aniki’s enemy is my enemy!”
That’ s a nice thing to say.
I didn’t realize he trusted me that much in such a short time.
I’ll be honest and thank him here.
“Reizen. If you have a magic skill, the attack will pass his defense. Do you have anything like that?”
“I’m sorry, I have higher defensive skills. I’ll protect Aniki, the Oni behind me, and the carriage.”
“Hey … you sure about that? Can I leave it to you?”
“No problem! 【 Pneumatic Barrier- Sturdy】 !”
As Reizen chanted the skill, a thick transparent wall appeared behind us.
This is amazingly big.
Is it an upgraded version with the 【 Pneumatic Barrier】 that I have?
I think it was not as simple as that.
While he was doing so, Lequam launched the 【 Heat Rays】 at Reizen, but Reizen just slapped the ray away from its trajectory as if he were slapping down a fly.
“Wait a sec! I’m almost ready with my skill, don’t slap the ray in my direction!”
“Ah, the ray? You mean that flying red stick !?”
Bro, for real?!
But for Reizen now, he probably feels no heat or anything else, so I guess this is the only impression he can get for now.
Seriously…….
What the hell is really going on with this guy’s defense?
“Let’s see, this is for you Aniki, 【 Substitution】 “
When Reizen said this and put his hand on me, my body glowed white.
But it was only for a moment, and the light soon faded away.
I checked my body, but there was nothing unusual.
What is that skill?
“Aniki, This skill is a skill that allows me to take Aniki’s damage. His attacks don’t hurt me at all, and no matter how many thousands of shots he fires at me, he can’t damage me, so you can win by brute force!”
“You really have some screw loose in your defense skills..”
“Ha ha ha-!”
At any rate, I was now ready to fight.
I looked at Lequem and saw that his face was bright red and he was trembling, revealing his anger.
What in the world have we done?
“Red … Red stick …!? Red stick …!? You call this magic, which I finally developed after 20 years of research, just a red stick?!”
Well, there we go.
“Y- you … how dare you! How dare you insult my research! You goddamn someone with black hair!!!!”
“Screw off, dude!　The only thing that’s cool is the magic circle!　The magic circle is so big, but the sticks that shoot from it are so small!
Ooofff, burn!
I mean, why do you make him angrier than this!
Ah, no, it’s no good.
He’s totally pissed him off!
“Die you bastard!”
Lequam re-cast his magic circle and fired a barrage of 【 Heat Rays】  at me.
I braced myself a bit, but Reizen jumped in front of me and pointed one hand at the rays.
“【 Pneumatic Barrier- Sturdy】! Then, release it! Go!”
A barrier of the same size as us appears before him.
It surpassed the heat rays for a while, but when Reizen released the barrier, he went straight toward Lequam.
Of course, while receiving all the heat rays, his momentum did not weaken and his speed increased steadily.
Clang!
He hit Lequam with such a sound.
Lequam was blown away heavily and rolled on the ground.
He got up immediately, but he was looking at us with a look of hatred.
Oh goodness, that’s scary!
“The heck, what happened with your attack, Reizen?”
“Well, I tried, but it’s not that fatal.”
“Rock Gun … No, was it Rock Cannon at that time? What happened to that skill?”
“It’s gone!”
Yeah, that’s happened to me too.
In my case, it didn’t really bother me, just the loss of 【 photosynthesis】 skill.
I can’t believe you lost your offensive skills. …… Reizen has worked so hard.
I wonder how he has managed to survive this long.
Well, it’s okay.
You are here now.
As I was thinking, another heat ray came flying at him.
Reizen seemed to be unable to react to them and seemed to have received all the heat rays on his body, but he was completely unmoved.
He was truly a walking fortress.
Instead of showing any sign of pain, he just waved his hands in the air as if he got rid of smoke.
A few shots hit me, but they didn’t hurt at all.
Not even the impact was felt.
This must be the effect of the 【 Substitution】 .
“Geh~. This is so annoying. Aniki, please get on with it.”
“I guess so. Now that I’ve seen how great you are, I’ve got to show you how good I am.”
“Oh! As expected from Ouren-aniki! Go for it!”
It’s a distracting cheer.
But, well, It’s not bad.
This time, since I have a 【 Substitution】 , I’ll really try to push my way into the fight.
Of course, I’ll avoid it as much as possible.
“【Water Spear Volley】【Reamed Water Spear】【Sharp Water Blade】”
On one hand is a 【Sharp Water Blade】 that resembles a Katana.
Previously, it could only transform into the form of a longsword, but as I trained with it, I discovered that I could also change the shape of the sword.
The shape of the sword is most familiar to me somehow.
This was easy to imagine, and I was able to create it immediately.
The sharpness of the sword is more than twice that of the longsword, by the way.
Then fifteen 【Water Spear Volley】 appear in the air.
Since I used too much MP for the barrier earlier, this is the limit that I can do right now.
Four of them are converted into a series of 【Reamed Water Spear】.
“Wow! What’s that! That’s really cool!”
“Appearance isn’t the only thing that looks cool, you know?”
After saying that, I started running.
It would take some time to get close to Lequam because the ray attack is still going on.
However, 【Water Spear Volley】【Reamed Water Spear】 went to attack Lequam first.
“I’ll burn you into ashes!”
Lequam, too, is losing ground, and manages to outrun the 【Reamed Water Spear Volley】 by making the flame swords that previously appeared.
But all of them bounced against each other near Lequam.
Lequam seemed to have turned his flame swords for defense.
But remote-controlled skills cannot be properly used without grasping all of them.
If it is a simple order, like mine to just stab the Lequam to pieces, it’s easier because it’s simple, but if you are going to be on the defensive, you have to watch every attack that comes to you.
It may work automatically as a skill correction to some extent, but the performance is still inferior.
I haven’t gotten close to Lequam yet, but I was thinking of controlling 【Reamed Water Spear】 and cutting him off again.
In a flurry of sword blows, two spears passed by Requam at the same time.
Lequam seems to feel uncomfortable that he hasn’t attacked himself, so he tilts his head for a moment.
At that moment, Lequam makes a sword of fire appear in front of him.
Then the sword that Lequam created clashed and stopped as if it was hit by something invisible.
It failed.
I wanted to put the thread against Lequam’s body, but the sword prevented me from doing so.
The thread was almost invisible, but he must have been alerted by the previous attack.
But my attack is not over yet.
I move the spear that just passed on both sides of Requam, cross it back toward him.
Now Lequam is surrounded by strings.
If I continue to pull the spear, I can cut off his body.
The spear speeds up and twists the thread around Lequam.
The moment the thread hit Lequam’s staff, Lequam crouched down to avoid the thread attack.
Another miss.
Perhaps he realized that the thread was coming at him by the feel of it in his hand through his staff.
However, it was able to cut off the staff and the flame sword.
What a fantastic cut, as expected.
“So? You can’t escape with only squatting, you know?”
“!!?”
It was more than enough time to get close in between those attacks.
I’m already raising my sword and aiming at Lequam.
The flame swords around him stop defending and focus on me, but it’s not 【Reamed Water Spear】that is easy to control.
This time I was on the defense, but the spear was long.
I used its length to repel the flaming swords.
The crouching Lequam cannot run away.
I think he could jump to the side on the spur of the moment, but he would lose his posture.
I was not so naive as not to aim at him at that point.
But I would never give him time to jump to the side.
I swung my sword down.
He tried to defend his body with his arms, but the sharpness of the sword surpassed even the continuous water thread spear.
His arm flew cleanly and sliced down from his face to his torso.
“Arghhhhhhh !?”
Lequam screams.
But it might regenerate again.
If that happens, it will be troublesome.
So, I stepped in to keep on going and continue.
However, some walls prevented me from approaching.
It was an invisible wall, so I hit it with all my might.
The recoil was very painful.
“*Gasp !? What the-!”
When I saw it, I saw a magic circle floating around Lequam.
Lequam was enveloped in light.
“You bastards!　I will kill you all!　I’m gonna kill you!　Wait for it!”
I was watching Lequam as he disappeared, his face contorted with intense pain.
I tried not to let him escape and slammed my sword into the wall, but it didn’t cut through.
While he was doing so, Lequam was enveloped in a white light, and when the light completely obscured him, the white light disappeared in an instant.
And then Lequam was gone as well.
I intuitively realized.
I knew in a hunch that he had escaped.
But we were able to fight an S-ranked adventurer.
I don’t know what would have happened if Reizen hadn’t been here, but I guess …… this is a good outcome.
The first thing that comes to mind after this settled up was, there was a wounded person.
“Oh shot! Uchikage!”
He is still seriously injured.
I have to treat him as soon as possible.
I dismissed all my skills and ran to Uchikage.
As I passed by Zero Tobori, he called out to me.
“Oh,  Aniki, hold up a sec──”
“-gueh !?”
I hit the wall.
And that too with all my might.
It was painful.
“Uh- my bad. I haven’t undid my skill yet..”
“~~ Ah come on!”
As soon as I saw that Reizen had released his skills, I quickly approached Uchikage and applied【Great Heal】.
All the wounds on his body were closed and the burns were gone, but he had fainted.
I checked his pulse and found that it was beating properly, so he was alive.
I was relieved and put him in the carriage for now.
Once inside, Alena and Satella were huddled together and shrinking in a corner.
From outside, they must have heard fierce sword fights and cursing.
No wonder they were frightened.
In case you are wondering …… the shadow clone created by Uchikage had disappeared.
“Is Uchikage going to be okay?”
But soon Alena and Satella approached me, worried about Uchikage.
They were trying to carry Uchikage in, even though they were slightly helpless.
We decided to bring him inside, put him down on the blanket as a pillow, and see how he was doing.
At any rate, he would wake up in a while.
I suggested that Alena and Satella take care of him, and they both nodded their heads enthusiastically.
However, their eyes seemed to be directed not to Uchikage but to Reizen, who was behind me.
“Uhhm …”
“Hey, Reizen. Say hello.”
“I’m not a child!　But they are children …… I don’t know how to interact with them!”
So do you.
I understand how you feel.
When I first met Alena, I was at a loss as to what to say.
Well, thanks to Alena’s early realization that I could understand her language, I was able to make it work. ……
But this time we can speak their language.
Don’t be afraid, Reizen.
“Ouren-l”
“Hmm? What is it, Satella?”
“That person, stinks.”
Reizen was shocked.
He’s on his knees, grieving something.
But that’s given.
The clothes he wears are animal skins covered in some kind of blood.
The blood is also stuck to his head and other parts of his body.
He probably didn’t bathe.
Satella was right, there is definitely a bad smell.
But Reizen is our benefactor and my best friend.
Let me cover him up a little.
“Satera, Alena. This guy’s a good friend of mine. And he helped us, okay? You can’t say something like that. Though I understand why.”
“You agree with her !?”
“Just get in the water! Here! And get rid of those clothes. I’ll get another pair of clothes for you.”
“Ah- thankee! I can finally become a civilized person!”
It’s like he just says something. Well, let’s ignore it.
I use 【Infinite Water Manipulation】to wash Reizen there.
I was surprised that the water immediately got dirty, but this way, Reizen become clean and fresh.