Bel jabbed with her lance as Mir slid her blade along the side. She expertly lunged afterwards, but missed due to Bel’s kicking off the ground and moving backwards. Using two hands, Bel hefted her weapon and, with a steady grip, pointed it at Mir.

They both waited a moment for one another to go before Mir became impatient. She seemed to fizzle out of reality as she became a black smog filling the air. Mir looked around, from left to right, and yelled.

The yell sent a shockwave that beat the fog out of the air and forced Mir to appear. Appear above her that is.

Using gravity as an ally, she beat her wings to propel herself. Bel looked up. She wouldn’t be able to counter in time if she lifted her lance. That was when she decided to kick it. She dropped her lance and kicked the tip so that it aimed straight upwards.

In shock, Mir dove out of the way getting sand on her clothes. Both Bel and Mir were going to go through hell trying to clean the sand out of their clothes. However, at the moment, they only needed to worry about the battle.

Rune quickly took several steps back as he did not want to interrupt their battle. It seemed that a third of the entire arena was their battlefield and the arena itself was quite large.

Bel recollected her lance from the air and swung it to the right, the place where Mir dove. As a counter, she lunged at her opponent. The blade whistled through several feet of air before stopping.

It stopped when Bel grabbed hold of it an inch from her heart. Her left hand bled as she knocked away the blade that was still in Mir’s grasp. The injury wasn’t awful and she could still fight, but now she wanted to pay Mir back.

Mir had backed up, wanting to avoid another attack as she returned to her usual guard position. On the other hand, Bel was readying her lance to prepare a large attack. With her left hand at the handle where the cone started and her right hand near the pommel, she took a step forward with her right foot.

A burst of wind exploded as she kicked off the sand, which wasn’t a very suitable fighting ground, and Bel reached Mir faster than a blink of an eye. Mir, wide eyed and barely prepared, swung her rapier upwards to try and counter.

The lance pierced her slightly in her left shoulder, but it also wasn’t devastating. However, the two were now even once again.

Backing off, the two sides were about to fight once again when…

“Stop!”

Rune spoke as he put up both his hands, turning his palms to face both sides. He looked to the left, then the right and spoke again.

“Go get a potion of minor healing and stamina each. Then come and fight me, two on one.”

“Eh? But isn’t that unfair?”

“Yeah, it is unfair to us.”

Bel spoke first in a loud, unwavering voice followed by Mir who questioned his reasons. They both looked confused as they knew how powerful her was.

“What if… I don’t use magic AND I only use my armor? No weapons or magic or even potions! Just my fists.”

“...”

“Uh...”

“Sure!”

After a moment of thought, Bel responded as the restrictions seemed good. She still had no doubt she would lose, but at least the battle would be longer.

“Are you insane!? He’s a monster who killed that dragon! The same dragon who casually ordered a Hierarch Dragon to capture you and accidentally broke off your horn.”

“Yeah, I know that. But if he only turns into his Cursed Armor form and has no other advantages, we have at least a small chance at winning.”

Bel turned to Rune as they reached the double doors that they had entered from. They were slowly opening inwards as an automatic sensor detected them and started to swing the doors open. Jared had really outdone himself with that one.

“... You won’t even use skills?”

“What if… I only use [Cut] and [Jab]? Cut is really only for offense and jab is more to parry blows.”

Bel turned to Mir.

“What do you think?”

“I mean, those are only F rank skills… but he is able to use moves outside of his skills and magics that are quite deadly, is he not?”

“I’m sure he can. Only greenhorns completely rely on their skills.”

“...”

Bel turned and shouted at Rune. Mir and Bel were already in the armory, but the doors were still open as they were still near it.

“We’ll do it!”

Mir went wide-eyed at once and stared in shock.

“I never said I would do it!!”

“But you said that the only skills he would be using are bad.”

“And I never said anything about wanting to fight him when he uses them!!”

The two started their walk to Sophia as Rune watched. He had already changed into his Cursed Armor form and was now regretting filling the arena with sand. I had already got in his armor.

----------------------------------------

“...And that is why I have decided that the two of us will fight your husband!”

Bel looked proud as she spoke, seemingly unaware of the sighing Mir behind her. For her, the end was nigh.

Bel and Mir were in the mansion and standing in front of the open door that lead to Sophia’s study. Looking in, they could see unorganized papers and some vials on the ground. When the two of them knocked and opened the door, Sophia had become flustered and tried to place everything back where it was.

Bel had started to give her a summary while she was doing that and managed to finish speaking before Sophia had even cleaned the floor. Bel noticed this mess and started to bow.

“Ah, worry not, madam. We shall clean up after you no-”

“No, I’m good!”

Bel looked up from her bowing position that she had gotten in. Her face was one of puzzlement as she did not understand why she didn’t want them to clean. Sophia seemed to understand why she looked that way and tried to give an explanation. And an explanation it was, no matter how vague.

“There are, is some that, um, only Rune and I are… allowed to use. They are, uh, really important and I would like it if you left the room so that I can, um, tidy up what I have lying around before you clean. Please?”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Her tall, fluffy ears twitched and her face grew red as she spoke. She was more focused on how to put away the “really important” things were rather than focusing on the conversation at hand.

And so, Bel hefted Mir onto her shoulder and closed the door. Mir was still muttering things like “I don’t wanna!!” and “Why me?!” The thought of attacking Rune truly scared her.

Bel, not wanting to hear another word that Mir was saying since it was lowering her confidence in being able to win, set her down against a wall where she promptly curled up in a ball. There was a bad mood around her and when Bel tapped her shoulder to see if she was feeling better, she fell on her side, still curled up in a fetal position.

Bel mostly looked around the hallway, not looking at anything in particular, until Sophia opened the door. Her hair was now a bit messy and she had a white lab coat around her shoulders. Her arms weren’t in her sleeves, but rather the entire coat was like a cape draped on her shoulders.

“So, what is it about fighting Rune?”

“We just need a healing potion and stamina potion for each of us.”

“Minor potions or…”

“Minor should be fine for healing. Maybe a stronger one for stamina if you’ve got one.”

“Yeah, I always keep at least one handy.”

Sophia moved to a shelf on the right wall and plucked four potions from the vial holders. Carefully, she proceeded to place one of each potion in both of her hands and handed one to Bel and the other to Mir.

Mir looked up and asked a question.

“Can we win?”

With zero hesitation and no thought whatsoever, Sophia answered.

“Nope. But you won’t die.”

Mir still saw a slight hope at the idea of not dying.

“Probably.”

And that placed her back in a bad mood as she sighed some more. At least she was now starting to drink the potions, resigned to her fate.

After slowing drinking, Mir stood up and brushed off her maid uniform. Bel already downed both of them and was watching Sophia close the doors.

Mir felt a jolt and she felt better than when she woke up after a good night’s sleep and ate a good breakfast. Her stamina was completely full and her wounds and scrapes had closed into nothing.

Sophia was there to see the effects of her potion and smiled. Then, as soon as she closed the doors, the two were off.

----------------------------------------

“I’m just saying, Rune probably won’t kill us. He’s probably doing this to test us.”

“But what if the test is that we have to beat him and if we don’t we die?”

“You’re awfully pessimistic now.”

“That’s because, if I die, I won’t get any money!!”

“...”

Bel had nothing to say to that. She, for all the time that she had worked with Mir, did not realize how greedy she truly was. She just couldn’t respond to her as she had nothing to say as what she said was also absolutely true.

Also, they reached the arena. The doors opened, they entered and picked up their weapons, and went to the actual fighting ring.

It was silent as wind blew some sand here and there and there were some vultures in the sky for some reason, even though they weren’t in an actual desert. The sand was hot from the sunlight, but the two maids wore shoes to protect from this.

In the center of the arena, a suit of dark armor sat in a criss cross position. Some sand had piled on and around him so that part of his legs were somewhat buried. He was just sitting there.

“BRING IT!!!”

A metallic voice that seemed to have no tone or feeling resounded through the area. The birds fluttered away and sand blew forth from the source, Rune. It was like a boss battle was about to begin.

Brushing himself off as he got up in the uneven terrain, Rune moved into a battle position. He could only use his hands, gauntlets, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him as he was able to block, parry, and counter any physical attack as well as most of the magical attacks.

Unfortunately for the maids, he had dark, poison, and psychic immunities with no weakness other than ones that would affect his overall status, like slowing him down or increasing gravity on him. The maids, however, used other magics as Mir could use Water on top of Dark and Bel could use buffing or debuffing magics.

Bel and Mir moved at the same time, keeping the same amount of distance between them and Rune as they circled around him. Bel moved right and Mir moved left.

They seemed to be planning a common procedure of attacking on two fronts as, when they arrived at locations opposite from one another with Rune in the center, they slowing inched closer. Bel readied her lance and Mir now held two rapiers. However, she held one rapier outside its sheath and the other was still inside. The other sheath that wasn’t being used was promptly tossed onto the ground. Mir had taken a lance that was more of a spiral than a cone with a large guard for the handle.

Suddenly, a flash of yellow light erupted from Bel’s lance and it went underground. It seemed to be able to move physical objects as it made a small tunnel in the sand. Mir also let out a blue magic circle on the tip of her rapier and it stayed there.

Bel shouted over the silence.

“Pattern 23!!”

The maids had battle patterns. They had worked with one another in training for a while when they were taken prisoner. Since they had nothing to do, they practiced combo moves together. Other than that, Bel would ignore Mir to go and get food.

As soon as she finished speaking, Mir vanished. It looked like her body had flaked out into a black powder that blew in the wind. It scattered until the black powder was all around them on the ground.

Rune looked around. He had a bit of a handicap with his armor now as he used to be able to see three hundred and sixty degrees around him, but now he could only see like how a regular Human would. He couldn’t take his helmet off since there were now machines inside that let him speak, see in thermal or night vision, and even smell things. Most of the parts for those mechanisms were in the chest, but the parts that received information were in the helmet.

Using his thermal vision, he looked around, but saw that the black dust had about the same temperature as the sand and that Bel was the only other being at the moment, if only looking through the thermals. It was actually rather useless now that he was on sand in a bright and sunny day with wind picking up and dropping off sand everywhere.

He turned to Bel and shook his body. His armor would have clanged together if he had been using regular, unenchanted armor. This set allowed him to be quiet, move at a higher speed, and pierce enemies with his fingers and spikes and horns that were sharpened to extreme points. One touch would make someone bleed.

The black powder flew off his armor and he seemed satisfied with this development. A moment later, he moved fifty yards and was right in Bel’s face when Bel made a smug smile.

Chains from the ground flew upwards, all around Bel, and tangled Rune up. This was the status effect, Bind, which chained a person for a specific amount of time depending on how large their mana pool was.

At least forty chains were around Rune, but one of them snapped. It was the one around his right hand’s index finger. Bel moved back several more yards and hefted her lance.

She thrust out the weapon and Rune’s arm moved to intercept it. Only, something else happened at the same time.

The sand under him turned muddy and his feet sank. Mir reappeared as the black powder swirled up beside Rune. The two traps had gotten him and the lance was a inch away from the chestplate.

The arm was deterred by the sudden trap, but hit Mir in the chin. Rune had been aiming to send Bel’s lance skyward, but instead Mir took a trip upwards. A terrible crack could be heard from the attack.

Mir spiraled upwards and let go of the two weapons. They both fell next to Rune and he could see that both now had several blue magic circles on them. When she landed, sand was kicked upwards and Rune felt just a tinge of guilt.

However, he had no time to feel any further as the lance accurately landed a blow in his shoulder. A pauldron flew off and it exposed an eerie orange glow with some gears that were still turning. To be honest, he had no idea what those gear were for. All he knew was that Jared was planning something.

The reason why he wasn’t as strong as before was because, while this armor could withstand more speed, it didn’t compare to his Demon King Form. It was like comparing a race car and an ant. On top of him not being able to use all his speed, he couldn’t utilize his full strength either as it would break the armor, and the maids.

At the point where he had tried to hit Bel’s lance but hit Mir instead, he was using more force than he should have. It caused one of his fingers to crack, but only a small bit.

Several more snaps could be heard as the yellow chains that were see-through were broken. He was using pure force to break his way out faster than if he had waited. If he had waited, it would take ten seconds to fully disappear, but only two seconds had passed and he didn’t want to sustain any more damage.

In less than a second, he broke the rest and literally hopped out of the wet sand. While it did make people sink, it was quite easy to get out of. It only changed the elevation of the terrain.

Then, in the next second, he rushed Bel once again as she was emitting another light from her lance, this time it was a light blue. She was surprised as he attacked and tried to thrust her weapon.

Using [Jab], Rune slid his left arm across the side of the lance and used [Cut] with his right hand to break the lance. A third of the weapon came off and fell into the sand.

Bel realized what he was about to do as he was completing the action, but only barely managed to leap back in time to see a fist whiz past her face. If she had waited even a nanosecond longer, she would have been hit.

She turned to her left to see Mir getting up. The broken jaw had healed already, it was a minor fracture, and she was still a bit groggy. She shook her head once, then twice, and looked at the two of them.

Bel took another step back, this time as quickly as she could and as far as she could have gone, but it wasn’t enough. Rune’s fist was about to meet her.

Then, as her action, Mir held up her hand. A blue light encompassed her hand, then disappeared.