「Greaves. Will. Take care of the small ones. I'll deal with the topdog, as you call it.」

Lian and the topdog stare each other down. The horndogs around its paws scatter avoid being stomped flat. It approaches the party with slow, heavy steps.

「Alone!? Lian, there's way too many of them! And then there's that thing!」

Will shouts from behind the spearwoman, pointing at the giant beast in the clearing.

「I can handle all of it, but I would appreciate it if you killed the smaller pests. Spares me a headache.」

「Will! Start casting, you jittery baby!」

Greaves runs out ahead of the party and stops beside Lian. His voice makes Will wrestle his shaky nerves back under control. The young mage steps aside and points his staff at the biggest gathering of the horndogs he can see.

「Good. Here we go. Don't let your friends die, Greaves.」

「As if I wi-」

Greaves tries to scoff out an answer, but Lian doesn't wait for a reply. Feeling sufficiently amassed, the horndogs begin swarming the party. The dirt beneath Lian is ripped out and thrown into the air, as she turns into a blue blur. She zig-zags across the clearing faster than Greaves or Will can get a clear picture of, slashing and piercing the horndogs in her way, and sending them flying into trees or sailing past them into the dark forest.

By the time Will finishes his incantation, the horde of horndogs charging at them has thinned out into only a small group. The air in front of Will's wooden staff blurs.

「『Heat Ray』!」

Will shouts at the top of his lungs. A mostly horizontal cone of blurry air projects further away from his staff, and envelops the entire pack of horndogs running at them. They explode into boiling, steaming blood and the remains splatter on the forest floor.

Greaves hacks away at the singular horndogs trickling in, and cleaves all of them apart with a single slash as they come, jumping through the air to rapidly change the party's point of defense. Will starts casting at another large group in the distance.

While the party defends itself from the smaller threat, Lian continues on her path towards the huge beast. The horndogs are oblivious to her lightning-fast movements, unable to catch a glimpse of her. Her body appears as nothing but a long blue blur, that stretches from one point to the next, scattering mangled horndog corpses in its wake.

However, the topdog's eyes track her with perfect accuracy. Nearly matching her speed, it carelessly raises its paw into the air, snapping a branch as wide as a man in its path. Lian stops right in front of the beast, becoming visible to the mundane observer once again.

Will and Greaves only catch a momentary glance of the beast's paw turning into a gray blur, as the topdog swings its man-sized claws at her.

「Lian!-」

Will calls out, as she fights the oversized horned wolf-beast alone. It lets out an ear-piercing yelp, which echoes throughout the forest. The beast impaled its paw straight onto Lian's spear after she braced it against the ground at a slight angle. Lian takes a peek back at Will, to ascertain why he called her name.

She smugly smirks when she sees him sigh in relief. Twisted awkwardly towards the spear, the beast continues whining with its paw on the ground. Will points his staff in Lian's general direction, casting something. She blinks a few times, furrowing her brows.

A sneaky horndog leaps at Lian from behind. She's about to react…

「『Windbolt』!」

Fwoosh!

The horndog jumping at Lian yelps, as a bolt of blurry air slams into it from the side. It flies sideways out of the clearing, and slams into some bushes out of sight with a loud rustle. Lian turns her head back to the party and smiles at Will again, who adjusts his glasses.

Alicia looks on in awe, only taking a quick peek behind her shoulder to make sure nothing is sneaking up on the party. The remaining horndogs lose confidence, considering the largest and the strongest beast of their pack is now pathetically trying to hop away, from what they considered their prey less than two minutes ago.

When the topdog shifts its weight trying to free its paw from the spear, she kicks her weapon up and twists it with the paw even further. The paw reaches the limits of its flexibility, and the beast yelps again. Lian violently rips the spear out of its padded paw with a spray of blood. The giant wolf-beast recoils back, ripping out multiple trees with its roots by simply leaning into them too much.

Lian once again turns into a blur. In her blazing dash, she rips apart the soft earth beneath her feet. With a serious, determined face, Lian stands at the side of the massive beast. Its eyes scan the clearing for her, but the pain in its leg distracted it too much to properly track her movements. The black-haired spearwoman cocks her arm back and throws her weapon at the beast's torso, just a little behind its front legs. A vapor cone appears around her spear from the sheer speed it takes in its brief flight, and it slams into the beast with a supersonic crack, and another accompanying yelp.

Lian doesn't wait for the beast to react, however. She jumps at the point of impact and yanks the spear lodged deep in its body out. The beast staggers sideways even further, falling over onto multiple trees. The party stares in awe as even the horndogs are unsure what to do next.

She once again moves faster than the party can see. Lian disappears from the side of the monster, and reappears at the wounded beast's throat as it writhes on the ground. She glares at the beast with cold eyes. Her black spear turns into a translucent black circle in her hands as it whirls rapidly. The spearpoint reappears below the topdog's throat.

Lian steps out of the way of the massive blood spray as the beast's throat is cleaved open. It tries to shakily lift its head and get up in panic, but then freezes and collapses, limp.

Thud!

The horndogs in the clearing immediately scatter into the dark woods. Alicia sighs with relief when she sees the remaining beasts dissipate. Lian glares one last time at the dead topdog, resting her spear point-up on the ground and holding it in one hand.

Then, she walks back towards the party with a smug, satisfied smile.

「Wow.」

Greaves comments, still stuck in his fighting posture for no reason. Will adjusts his glasses.

「See!? I told you a fourth member is a good idea! That was easy!」

He brags to the side at Will.

「Tsk. You did nothing Greaves, Lian deserves most of the reward…」

Will clicks his tongue, and his voice trails off when Lian gets in the earshot of them.

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「Do you mind if I harvest the beast?」

She asks with a casual tone and stance, sporting a slight smile and resting her free hand on her hip.

「…Harvest?」 「Harvest?」

Greaves and Will ask, looking at each other with furrowed brows.

…

In the meantime, back at the quadrennial summer martial tournament…

「Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the today's bouts! The tournament will continue tomorrow, with the quarter-finals in the morning, and semi-finals until the evening! We hope you enjoyed the twists and turns of today's matches as much as we did! Until then!」

The extravagantly dressed man announces from his platform, and bows. He walks away, and the audience begins to flow towards the exits with a murmur.

「So… Did you have fun today, Lia?」

Straf asks as he gets up as well. Cycelia takes it as a cue to get up, too.

「Mhm! The last few matches weren't that exciting, but they were all high level competitors! Seeing an expert handle a sword is interesting by itself!」

She nods with a smile as they squeeze into the crowd, flowing down the stairs to the exit. Something catches Straf's eye, high above on the rim of the arena.

「Hm?」

He squints, but can't see anything there anymore. Cycelia looks in the same direction, then back at Straf's face.

「Did you see something, Straf?」

She asks with a gently tilted head.

「No. I think my mind is just conjuring recurring characters out of the tournament arc fatigue.」

He walks with his hands in his pockets, watching his step down the stairs.

「What did you think you saw, then?」

「A parasol, or something. Dunno.」

Straf shrugs his shoulders.

「Ah… Sorry, Straf. I forgot you didn't sleep much tonight thanks to those assassins. Somehow I completely forgot… I guess I just feel that safe around you now.」

Cycelia looks down at the stairs as well and fidgets with medallion, sulking a little out of remorse.

「Whatever, no big deal. Keeping my harem happy comes a first priority to me.」

Ba-dump.

「N-no Straf, I can't keep making unreasonable requests of you. You must be dead tired after all this time.」

She blushes, smiling a little despite the feeling of guilt.

《Do they not have the word for a party in Straf's language? And he wants to keep his party happy despite me being the only member… Straf wants to keep me happy.》

Cycelia thinks as she keeps fidgeting with her medallion, and smiles even harder.

「I don't think we can call it a party if it's just the two of us, though, Straf…」

「Huh? Yeah I guess the harem could use more members…」

Straf rubs his chin, thinking as his eyes glance up and to the side.

「I think it's a really poor manners to just put a collar on a girl and keep her in tow like a dog on a leash. Harem protagonists think buying slave girls and freeing them is enough to get them to love you forever. What a nonsense, honestly. Going to an onsen or a beach every few episodes is not enough.」

Straf shrugs as they squeeze into the exit stairway.

「Huh?」

《Do… Do they really do that in Straf's homeland? Do they really treat women in such a horrible way? He must be such an extraordinary gentleman!》

Cycelia blinks, barely following what Straf is saying.

「Oh yeah, that reminds me. Are there any hotsprings around here, Lia?」

「Um. Yes. There is one, it's a little bit out of the way though.」

She nods, still confused.

「Alright. Gotta put that on my bucket list.」

Straf rubs his chin, while he and Cycelia enter the arena's lobby. He stops to take a look at the magically lit bracket wall. Cycelia looks over her shoulder and waits for Straf, when she notices she went past him.

「Heh. You didn't bet on me, right, Lia?」

He smirks, and puts his hands in his pockets as he continues to walk out.

「No. Though I really wanted to.」

She shakes her get gently, reaffirming Straf.

「Good… Good.」

Straf utters out, then starts chuckling ominously, looking down with a grin on his face. Cycelia gets visibly a little nervous as they walk out of the arena towards the inn…