Itai no wa Iya nanode Bōgyo-Ryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu Chapter 35

Defense Specialization and Battles with the Impostors

「【Hydra】!」

A poison dragon was shot out of New Moon.

However, it wasn’t aimed at Fake Sally.

The poison dragon that flew out of the sword tip aimed at the ground burst with a splashing sound and was scattered around Maple.

If she stepped on one of them, the original Sally would die in one hit.

For her to be able to get close to Maple, who was standing in the center of the sea of poison, she would have to leave a bigger opening than ever before.

Fake Sally, who had taken the distance to dodge the poison dragon, came running in.

Maple observed the figure closely.

And she noticed…

The fact that she was approaching while avoiding the poison.

「You don’t have 【Poison Immunity】, huh?」

As Fake Sally jumped at her with 【Leap】, she slammed her great shield into her.

It did indeed hit her body, but there was no resistance.

「【Mirage】—!?」

「【Defense Break】」

Fake Sally sliced through Maple’s torso, which was full of openings, and kicked Maple’s body away with 【Leap】 and just like that, she went out of range of the sea of poison.

「【Venom Cutter】!」

Fake Sally avoided Maple’s attack with ease. However, Maple felt strange about that evasion.

「I see… it’s not like she’s exactly the same as Sally, is it?」

Perhaps Fake Sally was faster than Sally.

Her evasion ability was equally good.

But that was only because she was fast.

She didn’t counter after evading by a hair’s breadth like Sally did.

Sally would have been able to dodge all attacks and even get close.

Fake Sally was just relying on her speed to dodge and couldn’t come close to attacking and defending in her evasion.

「Even so, she wouldn’t hit me in the end… 【Meditation】」

The ground around Maple rose up as if to say it didn’t matter what Maple was muttering.

Several pillars of earth stretched up, reducing visibility.

And those became the valuable footholds for Fake Sally.

「Hmm, so her magic is better than Sally’s?」

「【Defense Break】」

She pointed her great shield towards the direction of the voice.

Even if it was 【Mirage】, it didn’t matter.

She still had the HP.

Sure enough, it was an illusion created by 【Mirage】. Maple’s back was sliced through.

She turned around and swung her great shield, but it only hurtled through the air.

「It can’t be helped… let’s make this a battle of attrition.」

A magic circle unfolded from New Moon.

Fake Sally saw it and took cover.

None of the attacks would hit her if she was out of range.

「Fine. Let’s have an endurance contest.」

Maple muttered softly.

「【Venom Capsule】」

A purple sphere about two meters in diameter. Maple sank down into it.

「【Meditation】」

The HP bar that Fake Sally had been whittling down was recovering.

Fake Sally’s weapons were daggers, though.

If she tried to cut through that poison sphere and attack Maple inside, they would be covered in poison.

Moreover, there was a sea of poison spreading out on the ground.

The area around Maple was a high-level danger zone.

It was a hellish area that would drown everything that approached it in poison.

Fake Sally had 【Poison Resistance (High)】, but she didn’t have 【Poison Immunity】.

She couldn’t completely nullify the 【Hydra】’s poison.

「【Cyclone Cuter】」

A higher level of 【Wind Magic】 than what Sally had.

The swirling wind appeared around Maple and tried to cut through that poison barrier.

However, the skill ranks were too different between 【Wind Magic】 and 【Hydra】.

The surface was scraped off somewhat with a splashing sound, but she couldn’t reach Maple.

「【Venom Capsule】」

Following that voice, the capsule wrapped around Maple increased its diameter once more, to four meters now.

Of course, the thickness of the poison wall also increased.

This was a poison wall of despair for Fake Sally, who had many moves but low power.

「I’ll wait patiently until Fake-san’s MP runs out.」

Once the Fake Sally’s MP ran out, her signature number of moves would also decrease.

That would make it more difficult to break through the poison barrier.

【Venom Capsule】 consumed 20 MP each time.

Although she still had 【Eating Inedibles】 uses left, there was nothing that could be converted into MP.

Therefore, she was already out of MP.

She also didn’t have the five daily zero MP activations left.

Maple quietly waited for the automatic MP recovery.

Fake Sally shot magic at the poison barrier.

Such a scene continued for a while.

「【Venom Capsule】」

Such was Maple’s merciless barrier reinforcement.

The capsule changed its diameter to six meters and increased in thickness.

Maple had just one goal.

「If I can’t hit her with a normal attack I’ll just sink this entire room with the capsule and take her down.」

This was truly a battle of attrition.

Maple intended to paint Fake Sally completely into a corner to grab the victory.

In a place with no escape route, Fake Sally’s signature speed was meaningless.

On the other side, Sally was struggling to attack, too.

After all, her defense was overwhelming.

On top of that, she had offensive abilities that could lead to her death if she acted carelessly.

「The only saving grace is that she’s dumb compared to the real Maple, huh…」

Fake Maple’s attacks were just 【Hydra】 all the way through.

On top of that, she didn’t avoid using her great shield in the case of weak attacks like Maple did.

Therefore, Fake Maple’s 【Eating Inedibles】 uses were already gone.

The problem was its 【Hydra】.

Fake Maple had a skill that Maple didn’t have.

When that skill was activated, all of the remaining poison after 【Hydra】 was shot out would come together around Maple, and 【Hydra】 would be shot out again immediately.

A series of strong attacks with no time between them.

Sally had thought that all she needed to do to win against Fake Maple was to make her use up all the skills with limited uses, so it was unexpected that 【Hydra】 didn’t become unusable.

「Well, I guess it’s a good thing she doesn’t use 【Paralyze Shout】 or something like that.」

Sally was still thinking about how to counter Fake Maple while evading the three-headed poison dragon.

「Ah… what do I do? I don’t have a telling blow…」

For Sally, avoiding the 【Hydra】 itself was easy, so she had no problem thinking about that.

Sally tried attacking with 【Defense Break】 but she recovered with a skill that seemed to be 【Meditation】.

「She still has some troublesome skills left…」

Even as she did so, a poison dragon attacked her.

She dodged nimbly and thought about Maple.

「I wonder if Maple is also fighting my impostor? Has she already won?」

Sally thought that since it was Maple, she should be able to manage.

There was no way an impostor could defeat the real Maple, since Sally herself had almost no effective attacks against the Fake Maple right now.

Sally, who had been saved many times by Maple’s abilities, strongly believed that.

「Well then… let’s try some things. Maybe I’ll find at least one way to break through.」

Sally resolved herself and made a strategy with her skill set in mind.

The current Sally couldn’t win.

But what if she grew?

What if she could get new skills?

There was no change in Fake Maple’s movement patterns because Sally couldn’t reduce Fake Maple’s HP.

She was a simple enemy that just foolishly attacked with 【Hydra】 repeatedly.

Fake Maple could not change, and…

Sally had the ability to change remaining.

Sally decided to bet on that ability.

「I don’t want to lose to Fake Maple because it would be so frustrating! Let’s start with this skill.」

Sally went to attack Maple enveloped in shining effects.

This side, too, was about to enter a long battle of attrition that lay ahead.