Azura liked to think he was a solid combatant, even without magic. The bandit queen was currently disavowing him of that notion. She wielded a scimitar in each hand, and it was taking everything he had not to be cut into pieces by the whirlwind of strikes. In this case her blade's shorter range actually gave an advantage, because since his blade came out of his gauntlet instead of being held it was incredibly hard to maneuver it in the extra close range space that she was aggressively maintaining. He made a note to make a hilt he could attach the blades to, or maybe just a completely separate sword, that way he could keep his gauntlet blade for surprise attacks or in case he loses his sword.

He barely managed to get out of the way of her stab for his head earning himself a shallow cut in his cheek. He needed to focus, this definitely wasn’t an opponent he could take lightly. It was taking everything he had just to stay alive. He had abandoned any thoughts of offense after she had become a maelstrom of blades, where each strike threatened to be fatal. His shield arm was working overtime to make up for his sword being less effective when she was this close. The dance of death was at least not taxing his very limited mana too much, just his normal level of enhancements was enough to keep him on the playing field, but there was an obvious skill gap. She was easily maintaining the less than 2 ft space between them no matter what he did to try and disengage.

His shield blocked a swing that aimed to bisect him horizontally. Then he had to make an awkward half turn to maneuver his sword to deflect the stab she had attempted with her other scimitar. She changed things up by doing a shoulder charge while he was watching her blades. He went with it, letting it push him as far as possible to try and get some distance, but before he could use the extra space for anything she was back on him with a diagonal slice going for his right shoulder.

He wasn’t going to be able to get his blade in the way, but the vambrace itself would serve as a shield. He put his arm in the way of the blow and then tried to bash her with his shield. She did a spin to avoid it while staying in his space, and immediately went for another strike with both of her blades. He managed to twist fast enough to get his shield up, but was surprised by the amount of force behind this blow. He barely managed to stand his ground much less push her back. Honestly the most impressive part of her fighting style was how fast she could dis-engage and re-engage. He barely had a chance to breathe before she was on him again.

He wasn’t going to last like this, but activating his enchantments wasn’t going to be great either. He had already cast a lot of really high level spells, channeling that much mana through his body takes its toll, and his enchantments would be pushing an overtaxed body even further. He could end up dealing very real damage to his magic circuits. Especially given he’d made a bit of a habit of overtaxing them lately. Using a lot of mana wasn’t really an issue normally, but using a lot of it all at once could permanently scar the circuits.

His chest piece proved its value when her scimitar slammed into it full speed. The blade was unable to pierce the armor, but the blow still sent him tumbling backward. Thankfully he managed not to fall, because if he had fallen over she would kill him for sure, but the bad footing still put him at risk. He barely got his shield up in time to block the next slash. She had gone for an overhead slash with both scimitars. The force from that combined with his bad footing left him horribly off balance, and the bandit queen capitalized on his vulnerability to kick him in the stomach. The air rushed from his lungs as he rolled to get back on his feet after being knocked back.

Her scimitar came in from his left. He got his shield up, but it turned out to be a feint. She used the momentum from the swing to lower her body and swing her leg out to sweep his feet. He planted his feet instead of trying to dodge. Her leg slammed into his, and he barely managed to keep his leg planted, however in return she wasn’t able to smoothly transition back to standing using her momentum. He took the brief hesitation as a chance to swing down with his sword. She rolled to the side, avoiding the swing and swiftly returning to her feet.

The second her feet touched the ground she launched herself at him again and restarted the mad flurry of blows that was their skirmish. He really wasn’t sure if he should chance his enchantments. He could control which parts of it he activated, and to what extent they were activated, so just a small boost probably wouldn’t cause him any harm. Especially given how much he had improved his body's ability to handle large amounts of magic over his time in the academy. The copy of the crown had probably been his 2nd biggest spell. The first being when he activated his grimoire.

The difference was after the grimoire he had been allowed to rest and recover for a while, this time making the crown hadn’t been the end of his day. He had cast several not inconsequential spells and his circuits were pushed like crazy even after they had already had to do something beyond his normal level. Just like with a muscle working something after it was already overworked would only cause damage.

He pulled most of his sword back into the gauntlet leaving it less than a foot long and placed it between him and his opponent before extending it again. She dodged to his right and took a swing at the back of his neck. He dove forward and rolled to his feet, turning just in time to block her next swing with his sword back to its normal length. He didn’t know if he’d be able to break the amulet if he wanted to. At least not without taking an injury. Deciding he didn’t have any other choice if he wanted to try and keep up for this fight. He activated his enchantments as low as he could. The slight trickle of mana entering his circuits from the enchantments burned slightly, but the boost to his enhancement was enough to make the fight with the bandit queen significantly more manageable.

He took advantage of the moment of hesitation caused by the glowing symbols appearing on his skin to charge her with his shield out. She dodged to his right just like he expected her to and was forced to block the point of his blade that shot out from his gauntlet with force pushing her a good distance away as the chain sword pushed her to its full length before re locking together into its normal blade form. He wouldn’t have been fast enough to pull that trick off a second ago, but the burn his circuits were feeling all throughout his body told him it wouldn’t be safe to keep this up for long.

It was time to retreat. Before the bandit queen could fully recover and try to re-engage. He ran towards Arbeid jumping over the glass statues. He threw the unconscious man over his shoulder and then ran towards the oasis. He didn’t have to look back to know the bandit was chasing him. It was probably about time to call it quits. Where was he supposed to take Arbeid? He was faster than the bandit queen so he didn’t need to keep his enchantments up. At least not for the moment, but he couldn’t think of anywhere safe to retreat to. Even if he could, nothing would be stopping her from just kidnapping all of the villagers again. Or at this point maybe even just killing them.

He needed something to stall her long enough for him to recover, but he couldn’t think of… Well he had one idea, but he couldn’t say he was pleased with it. He really hoped he was going to be able to recover his things from the subspace. Without slowing down he took off all of his armor pieces. And unlatched his bow from the back of his belt. Of all of his stupid desperation plays this might just be the dumbest. Especially considering he could and really should have just broken the amulet.

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Maybe Katy was onto something with that whole reckless perfectionist thing. He really did push himself to the brink a lot even for things that were relatively unimportant like this event. Where the last prize was just a hint about this event. So it was likely all he would win would be a hint for the next event and yet here he was risking his life and risking losing his gear for it. If he survived this he was going to consider working on that.

***

Unsurprisingly the bandit queen continued to chase him even after he entered the scrap sharks nest. She also either didn’t know or didn’t care about their ability to smell metal, because unlike him she still had all her metal equipment. It didn’t take long for the monsters to detect their presence, and he was beyond pleased when they picked the bandit as their target. He didn’t sense the big one yet, but his foe was about to have to deal with some smaller interference. The small ones wouldn’t stop her that much he knew. He was really relying on the big one to take her out, or he may just have to break the amulet after all.

Given all that he had put into this event even the thought of breaking the amulet left a bad taste in his mouth. Watching the bandit suddenly be greeted with 6 of the scrap sharks jumping at her at once made him feel a bit better. Even if she had no trouble dodging or deflecting each of them. He was beyond relieved he had gone through here before. If he hadn’t already proven that Arbeids theory about smelling metal was accurate he wouldn’t have dared. Though he was pretty sure it wasn’t actually smell, at least he wasn’t sure how smell would work traveling through the sand, but his barrier that blocked the metal’s scent from going through it seemed to have done its job if the number of sharks attacking the bandit queen was anything to go off.

She was handling them admirably, dodge rolls, side steps, jumps, knocking them off course with her sword, the works. Frankly if she wasn’t still trying to kill him he’d be really impressed with her skills. Though her magic ability didn’t seem to be too advanced. She was slower than him even on a flat plane, and he hadn’t really seen her use any obvious magic. She was still far above normal human levels, so she was decently skilled at enhancement, but beyond that she didn’t really seem to be able to do much else.

Enhancement was typically the first thing a mage in-training learned, it was relatively simple as far as internal manipulation went, but it was highly effective. His father had always said that the level of someone’s enhancement was a pretty good indicator of how skilled they were with magic. There were of course exceptions, like this bandit queen who was fairly solid at enhancement, but couldn’t seem to do much else. Unfortunately the fact he was running on fumes, and her complete superiority in regular combat skills left him unable to best her at the moment.

Honestly he wasn’t sure how the fight would have gone if he was fully rested. Being the better mage didn’t mean a guaranteed win. He had lost to Luna enough times to know that. Even if he beat her most times that they sparred it was far from one sided despite him being far more skilled magic wise. He wondered how Luna would fare in a fight with the bandit queen. Both of them were monsters in terms of close quarters combat skills. He imagined a fight between them would be rather intense.

Now that the bandit queen was starting to get attacked by more and more of the sharks he was starting to get quite a bit of distance on her. The sharks wouldn’t be able to take her out though, and the big one didn’t seem to be showing up. That meant she would retreat and head to the oasis along the normal route. He would beat her there, but only by an hour tops. Even if he managed to fully recover in that time he’d be without his equipment. That summoning spell he had thought of so he didn’t have to try and carry a bunch of coins would probably need to have a variation for his weapons.

He would probably have some time to set up traps, so at least he wouldn’t be at a complete disadvantage. Plus hopefully she would be tired from dealing with the scrap sharks. He supposed he’d find out. She was already out of his line of sight, and he was nearing the oasis.

***

Surprisingly Azura made it to the little town without any issues. Unfortunately due to carrying Arbeid over his shoulder everyone was quick to figure out he was the one who saved them from the bandits. He supposed he was just lucky none of them knew it was technically his fault they had been attacked in the first place. He projected his voice over the din of the crowd of people trying to rush in to thank him. “The battle isn’t over yet. The bandit queen will come here in search of the artifact that led her to attack in the first place, and I need time to prepare so that I have a chance to win when she arrives. Everyone please stay in your homes and lock your doors.”

The locked doors wouldn’t really help, but it would make people feel safer. He wouldn’t have time to enchant each door to make them tough enough to work as a viable defense. Thankfully they all listened rushing to their homes with their eyes widened in fear. He stopped a larger man before they were able to flee to their residence. “Can you take him with you for now? I need as few distractions as possible.” The man nodded and gently took Arbeid from him.

Now that that was settled he needed to meditate. He was real short on mana, and he needed to recover it naturally and focus on fixing the soreness of his circuits at the same time. Thankfully he had found that his spirit contract had some interesting benefits to his mana recovery. While he couldn’t really tell if his overall amount of mana had increased he was able to tell that his concentrated recovery speed had. His passive recovery was the same unfortunately, but focusing on the link his contract provided boosted his recovery nicely, and with the extra tips he had learned in class he was recovering mana almost 10 times faster than he used to. Granted since he could only do it when given time out of combat to concentrate it wasn’t a game changer, and he couldn’t do it while needing to concentrate on something else like watching over Arbeid to make sure bandits didn’t kill the man.

It was half an hour later that he felt he was as good as he was going to get. He wasn’t a healer so his circuits were far from fully recovered, but they should be healed enough that he didn’t cause any permanent damage to them so long as he didn’t do anything too crazy. He didn’t imagine he’d have much more time before the bandit queen arrived, so he hurriedly started putting traps throughout the town. Regrettably they all had to be non fatal in case a townsperson decided to ignore his order to stay inside.

One of the things he loved most about his particular magic specialty was his ability to prepare a field. He was pretty decent in sudden combat, but his real specialty would always be when he was given prep time to prepare a field. His opponent was going to be better equipped, and was definitely the superior combatant. However he was fairly confident that he could set the field to be in his favor enough to at least even the odds. He set up primarily type 2 anti-magic fields. With a few type 1’s placed in specific locations in case she had any backup casting ranged spell attacks or she had a few of her own that she was holding back.

A few more damaging spells were also sealed in enchantments as traps. Most were electricity based so they would stun anyone who stepped on them without causing any lasting harm. A few were ice based for keeping her still. He’d have to be quick getting civilians out of the ice if they got caught up in one on accident though. Cold could easily be fatal if it was left long enough. He didn’t have his weapons, so he wasn’t going to be doing much other than running away trying to trick her into getting caught in one of his traps. He could probably beat her even without a weapon in the type 2 anti-magic fields since he’d be enhanced and she wouldn’t, but he doubted she’d take more than a step in one of them. Frankly they were set more as deterring factors to keep her out of certain locations.

Satisfied with a job well done. He sat down to wait for his opponent to arrive. It wasn’t a perfect scenario, but it was the best he could do with what he currently had on hand. He wished the type 2 fields didn’t take so long to set up. He would have loved to have more than 3 of them set. Oh well, it would have to do. At this point he had almost forgotten this was just a simulation. It really was disturbingly realistic.