Mira's PoV:

"Oki-doki! Leave it to me!" - Zaria

Zaria saluted me before taking off to the arena. What one needs in life is good friends. Wish she had thought of giving me the item that is attracting the giant beast over there. She can be so short-sighted sometimes. She can feel herself lucky that I'm not the type to point that out right into her face.

I'm holding a lightning bolt-shaped rod that must be what Zaria stole from the Treasure Tower. My instinct as a former street rat is telling me this. And [Identification] agrees with it. This thing even has the same abilities (outside the first one) that the documents Blot found regarding this item. Just how prepared can that man be?

...there is something off with the results though. It looks like part of the data is corrupted...or blocked? Garami could probably see through it...or maybe Blot? He seems like the intelligence-type. 

Not that it matters. As long as this wand can attract that beast, that's enough for me. 

The beast is...still occupied. Those black-clothed men have been keeping it busy. Good going, guys~. Wear it out a little more so I can do the finishing...tch. They're retreating. Outside a few sacrificial pawns, most of the black-clothed group has left the area. They threw some vials with a liquid to the ground, which generated a magic circle, then they...teleported!? I want that. It's bound to sell for a high price.

But this means I have only a few seconds before the battle starts. I kept a tight grip on my new sword, a black zweihander with a cross-shaped guard, and ran toward the dragon with all the speed I could muster and jumped toward the dragon's neck. With a slash enhanced with the crystal arm of the Dark Knight class, I cleanly cut through the beast's neck. 

I did it. I so nailed it. It went so well that I'm starting to doubt whether I did it or not. 

I turned around to look at the dragon. Its body looks like that of a jellyfish, with the "tentacles" being many dragon limbs, and the remaining part of its neck is sticking out of the top of the "umbrella"-part of the jellyfish body. The head shaped like a western dragon's is...rolling around on the ground. Good..., wait. Why's it rolling?

I watched as the dragon's head rolled back to the body, which lowered its neck to the ground level. Then multiple small tentacles emerged from the cut-off section of its neck and attached themselves to the head. Disgusting..., and is that head regenerating back into place!?

It did. It didn't even take a long time before the dragon beast was in one piece again. I've heard about some jellyfish monsters being practically immortal, but this is just ridiculous!

Right then, the dragon released a breath at me. No warnings?! Reflexively, I held up my sword to defend myself. And miraculously...the breath got sliced in half and went past me.

......okay? What happened here? I just made a stance there. It wasn't like I was actively trying to guard against that...

The dragon looked as confused as me before it started to charge up a new breath. And unlike the one from before, this isn't a simple shot that trades power for speed. Should I run, or should I bet on this sword's strange power again-

*ZAAAP!!*

-..., or I could wait until the charged breath detached the dragon's head from its neck. 

It's a strange sight, but it is occurring, right in front of me nonetheless. The dragon's breath must have been too powerful, so the head ruptured off the dragon's neck. 

Is that where I cut off the dragon's head the first time? Didn't it regenerate? ...don't tell me this sword made the wound "unhealable" or "it's so sharp that it became impossible to reattached the head" or something. I'm starting to get excited...

The dragon didn't share my sentiment and rushed toward me in a headless rush. Literally. Even if this new baby is an awesome piece of metal, it can't help if this guy is rampaging all over the place! And don't go and run toward the fighting arena! Zaria and the others are fighting there!

"Take a chill pill already! Strong light, converge, then strike my enemy! Luminous Spear!" - Mira

Light started to gather in front of the magic circle that appeared with my chant and released a spear of light at the rampaging beast.

For some reason, chants became more important now than before the end of the "Nightmare Festival" system update. Some people can still skip it, mostly thanks to their talents/skills, but I still need to say them out loud to concentrate on activating the magic.

The beast got distracted by the spear and turned away from the arena. That's one problem less, but how can I...

As things are going now, it's probably no big haste defeating the Spirit Lord. 

I took out the bolt-shaped wand and aimed it toward the dragon beast. What did it say on those documents Blot provided... Oh, right.

"Thunder of the gods, be sealed!" - Mira

A golden lightning effect emerged from the tip of the wand and crashed into the dragon beast. The golden lightning proceeded to wrap itself around the beast while the creature tried to shake it off. It feels like I'm fishing a giant fish here. The dragon's pulling so hard that my feet are scraping up the earth! Get. Into. This. Stupid. Wand. ALREADY!!

I channeled my inner Alf and tugged the wand like a fishing rod and forced the beast to be dragged into the golden lightning. Then the lightning itself returned into the wand, with the beast-transformed-into-lightning with it. 

"Capture complete, I guess," I said to no one specifically as I was laying on my back from having pulled the rod...the wand too hard. 

"Does Garami have these kinds of problems with her notebook? That could be why she only started to actively use it now recently..." - Mira

Wait, this isn't the time for a break. Zaria should have shaved the werewolf down to his underpants by now. Let's go and enjoy the pathetic view~.

---

"Ga-hahahaha! Sorry, Blottie! But you're not the only one who can enter sub-dimensions!" 

......I completely lost the timing to appear.

Blot suddenly appeared injured from a crack in the air, Zaria's mentally exhausted from the looks of it, and the loud-mouthed bastard that's the source of this strange mood is...

"Everyone~? ARE YOU READY TO DIE?! Ga-hahahaha!" - Scarecrow

That blasted right-hand bot of the Black Baron! Was he always so hot-headed?

The thin Machinerz, Scarecrow, I think it was? He looks no different than the time I saw him in the Tir na Nog Dungeon. This time, he's alone except for a huge......AAAAAHHH!!! 

Blasted hell and broken swords! Why did I never notice such a simple fact? Back then-

"Shut up, you stupid tin can! I'll rust your limbs apart, screw by screw!" - Zaria

"Oh...okay...who is this ruffian?" - Scarecrow

It's not the time to feel sorry for myself. Zaria's under much more stress. Let's go and save her. 

And for the enemy lines, they have Scarecrow, a large Machinerz with wheels and some big electrical-looking sphere on its back, and a huge, golden snake...hey! That's the guy who broke Ling's back!

"Hmph. What a pathetic child." - Golden snake

"Shut up before I peel off those-!?" - Zaria

Zaria's curses were cut short by a spear made of solid gold shot up from the ground. That bastard-!

"Illusive-!" - Blot

"Gold, strike!" - Golden snake

Blot tried to use a spell, but the wounds must be slowing him down. On the other hand, the snake managed to shorten his chant without sacrificing any power. And it's a golden version of Luminous Spear! The power's way more than what I can dish out. Not that I'm surprised. I'm no magician. Blot dodged it, but at the cost of losing control of his spell, which caused it to misfire. 

Are you serious? That's a high-rank technique after the new magic rules with the latest system update in play. Even with chant-shortening skills, it takes a lot of talent to keep the power output of the spell from falling. Just relying on the skills would kill almost all of the power behind the spell, which makes magic an even more difficult art to master. 

And despite that, this snake has already adapted to the new rules? Or did he have a mountain's worth of talent from the start? In any case, let's start producing phantasmal swords with Airgetlám...

"That is quite the ability with magic you have there," said Blot as he picked himself up from the floor.

"...mechanical one, we should leave." - Golden snake

"Y-yeah. We got the [Chastity]-Factor. Start the transport!" - Scarecrow

Now that's something we can't have, can we?

"Unknown forces, gather, then fire! Force Shot!" - Mira

I fired the phantasmal swords at the trio of terror (lol). Scarecrow did a funny dance to dodge them, while his way bigger companions only moved aside. This is why I hate chants-

*Shatter*, *crack*, *CRASH!*

...hmm?

"Geh!? That girl! The prostitute who's always with that Champion-girl!" - Scarecrow

"What did you call me!? Save that for Ciara!" - Mira

"Who? And wow!? She sliced and diced the stands like sandwiches!" - Scarecrow

Look, even I'm surprised at that. I only copied this strange zweihander. How could I know they would be this awesome! I only used [Lightning Edge] on them as an extra precaution, but that's far from explaining this cutting power. They even destroyed the remains of Blot's pocket dimension! I should have used them against the dragon beast. 

*...crack*

It seems to have nicked that glass container on top of the Machinerz...now I get it. I was wondering where the Spirit Lord had gone to.

"C-crud! The container! Algarve! Hurry up and transfer-!" - Scarecrow

"[Chain Lightning]!" - Mira

Since the swords from before were using [Lightning Edge], I could use [Chain Lightning] to form a "daisy chain" between them and my current blade, meaning right in between the trio and preventing the snake from doing his thing. 

"This little brat-!" - Golden snake

"[Steal]!" - Mira

While they were confused, I quickly took whatever they had taken from Blot. They mentioned [Chastity], so it's 10.000:1 that it's something we shouldn't let them have. 

"Huh...ah!" - Scarecrow

Good, I got something. ...what is this? A flask with something in it? It looks suspiciously like something that only a necromancer or a vampire would be happy to obtain.

"NOOOO!! Not the [Humility]-Factor!!" - Scarecrow

[Humility]...the Extra Skill of the former Wind Lord!? The one which negates any other skills near the user!? ...did I aim for a payout, but got a jackpot instead? Why can't that ever happen when I'm visiting the casinos? 

"Rubber-Burner! Steal that back!" - Scarecrow

The wheeled Machinerz came at me with the intent to kill, so I created a fence of electricity to pause it. It only led to the thing jumping over the fence. This thing can do that!? Since that was plain rude of the buckets of bolts, I slashed at its underside and caused it to fail its landing and crash into the ground.

After that, I ran up to it and kicked off the glass container toward the audience seats. It broke and the lightning inside took shape and revealed...Mikazuchi. I knew it. Those bots and snakes must have barged into this girl and Blot's fight and trapped/wounded them when they had their guard down.

*Vrrrr...*

And I'm not planning on making the same mistake. The vehicle Machinerz is still alive even after I knocked off the container. I gave it another slash, but it retaliated by making gunports appear on its body and fired at me, forcing me to guard with crystal shields as I saw the machine take some distance from me.

"Hey, Zaria! Machines are your specialty! Start rusting it...Zaria?" - Mira

I asked Zaria for some help, but when I tried to take a look at her, I saw her down on the ground with something like steam coming out of her head. Crap, she's too delicate... Why did it turn so dark here?

"Whoa-!" - Mira

A huge paw fell at me. One hit would crush a normal person into many tiny pieces. Which means...

"Even the lion!? What am I? A caretaker for giant monsters!?" - Mira

The giant Regulus monster that had been fighting at the other end of the arena had suddenly decided to make me its new cat toy. It's just a guess, but I'd say those black marks on its face that had appeared since I last saw him must be the reason why. And I may be guessing again, but after hearing that the snake could use Curse moves, I can't help but suspect him...

"Hey, start the transport already!" - Scarecrow

"Do not...rush me..." - Golden snake

Hmm? The snake's in pain? I'm having a bad feeling...

I took a look at the part of the area the lion should have been fighting in and saw the white cat and the crystal golem having collapsed on the ground. Like Zaria, there's something like steam rising from their heads. It's even more impressive when the golem is doing it. Talk about a sauna~.

But this isn't the time to be cracking jokes. Something extremely strange is going on here. And...this guy wants to crack me!

*Boom!*

I dodged another of the lion's paw strikes that crushed the crystal arena floor and took a stance to use a Sword Art. It was then the Machinerz managed to pick itself up from the ground and came at me. Tch, two at once...

"Chains of light!" - Blot

The two monsters were wrapped up in chains of light. In the corner of my eyes, I could see Blot trying to keep himself standing despite his wounds. He managed to gather them up nicely. Let's take advantage of that and kill two monsters with one blast...tch. I got barely any MP left. It's been a longer day than I expected. In that case, let's make it a three-for-two sale then.

Instead of preparing the phantasmal swords, I drew the lightning bolt-shaped wand. The documents about it said it's a magic item that can store even the lightning of the gods, then release it as a weapon. Let's see if there's some truth in those legends...

"Thunder of the gods, be released!" - Mira

A huge, jellyfish-shaped bullet of lightning was released from the wand and scored a clean hit on the monster-duo trapped in Blot's chains. Who am I kidding? It's the freaking electrical dragon beast that's being shot! 

The lightning hit the lion and the machine, resulting in them both...exploding in a burst of explosion. The force of the blast was so much that I got blown on my back. That's the second time this stupid wand has floored me. I'm starting to hate it. 

I could hear some notifications from the World System. Probably a level-up announcement. Because, despite the lion's natural affinity for Lightning, it had turned into a shower of blood, gunk, and metal parts alongside the Machinerz. Not that I could care about looking at it right now. As I mentioned, there's a shower of blood right now. I want a bath...

"Awawawawawawa..." - Mikazuchi

Outside the range of the rain, I could see the Spirit Lord looking at the scene with a pale face. 

"...if you don't stay nice, you're getting the same treatment." - Mira

"Hiiiii!! ......*faint*..." - Mikazuchi

The Spirit Lord fainted from the threat of the blood-stained me. She had the mentality of a child, so she should think twice about any more "pranks". Maybe I even overdid it...

But that Scarecrow machine and his serpent ally have left the place. They must have completed the teleport spell while I defeated the monsters. 

"They got away..." - Mira

"But not with their victory." - Blot 

Blot, who looked much better now, came up to me while wearing a smirk on his face. 

"What do you mean by that? And no riddles. I'm tired." - Mira

"It's been a long day, so please take a rest before we start talking about that subject. We also need to help everyone who has fainted." - Blot

Everyone? ...Zaria, the white cat, the various black-clothed men who were left behind, the giant golem, even the Shadow Loong Blot came with... All of these guys? My long day is not over yet...

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Kigal-Note/Special Classes: Metallic Inventor