Chapter 361: C-Rank Advancement Examination (13)

Ryuushin continued to defeat Gad overwhelmingly with techniques such as "Dragon Slayer Fist," "Dragon Slayer Kick," and "Dragon Slayer Cannon." By the way, Dragon Slayer Cannon was just a regular Dark Breath. Apparently, he had become able to use the strongest attack of the black dragon, which is known as Dark Breath, even without transforming into a dragon.

Normally, it takes decades of training for a Dragonoid to be able to use Breath in their human form.

Hinata was very satisfied after seeing Ryūshin obliterate Gad with his Breath while still in human form, and even completely destroy a part of Halt’s dungeon while at it.

It was good, truly amazing.

However, it bothered her that Ryuushin, a member of the dragon tribe, is using Dragon Slayer techniques. She already pointed this out to him before, but —

"But it sounds really cool! Great names probably make the skills more powerful, right? And it’s easier to shout out loud, so this is fine, isn’t it?"

Ryuushin just replied like that.

However, other than Dark Breath, Ryuushin's techniques are not skills or magic — he's just releasing high-density magical power with his body movements.

Specific attack skills can be activated by shouting out the name, but Dragon Slayer Fist is not like that. And unlike casting spells, doing so doesn't change its power one bit.

The idea that doing so increases the power is just Ryuushin's misunderstanding.

However, because it’s a technique that releases mana according to the body’s movements, it’s easy to get the timing right, making it possible that it made him feel like the attack power gets stronger when he did that.

“Ugh, I-I lose- ugh!!”

Ryuushin was mulling about a lot of things when Gad finally admitted his defeat.

Being freshly revived, Gad’s throat wasn’t fully healed yet, having repeatedly screamed during his battle with Ryuushin. Even so, he managed to tell Ryuushin that he surrendered.

Unfortunately, his timing was quite bad.

“Eh?”

Ryuushin had just unleashed his largest Breath attack of the day towards Gad when the dragonoid heard his words of surrender.

Gad’s body was obliterated in an instant without any means for Ryuushin to stop it.

“...Ah, sorry about that.”

“Victory goes to Ryuushin!”

Guild Master Irina declared Ryuushin’s triumph.

Gad’s body started to regenerate.

His battles were far from over.

　──＊＊＊──

“Okidoki, my turn meow!!”

“Good luck, Merdie.”

“Merdie, please be careful.”

Luna and I cheered Merdie, and she beamed at us in reply, before turning to walk towards Gad.

“H-Hey, you’re not a Bakemono like them, are you?”

“Nope, meow. Don’t lump me with those two, meow.”

That’s Merdie’s reply to Gad’s question.

Those two — was he referring to Ryuushin and me? Or maybe Hinata too? I’ve been called a Bakemono a lot, but if we consider the general residents of this world, then Ryuushin is also strong enough to be Bakemono level.

He’s the black dragon originally, so he should be more of a Bakemono than me, right?

“...Then good. Let’s go.”

I saw Gad smirk.

He’s probably thinking that he’s gonna enjoy this battle with Merdie.

“You sure we can start, meow?”

“Sure thing, come at m —”

Gad’s upper half got obliterated mid sentence.

Merdie must’ve thought Gad signaled the start of the fight, so she rushed at him and closed the distance between them in just a blink of an eye, landing a punch imbued with immense mana at point-blank range.

The shockwave destroyed a part of the dungeon wall

I already reinforced that part with magic after Ryuushin’s attack that tore it down. Merdie easily demolished it in just an instant.

She said she’s different from Ryuushin and me.

That’s not wrong, in a sense.

She’s different from Hinata, who became stronger because of her rare attribute, or Ryuushin and I, who possessed a special status that allowed us to become more powerful.

Merdie was the manifestation of pure talent.

She's such a genius that she learned to how to use magic suit and even mastered it all in one day when it took me a long time to master using it. Thanks to the suit, she could perform an attack that moved her mana at the moment she strikes, resulting in devastating damage. It took me two years to learn how to do it, but she did it in a day, and even improved her own version.

Merdie only needs to receive a physical attack once and she’d be able to copy it almost perfectly. There are skills that she couldn’t copy like those of Akari and Sitri due to lack of status, but that was the exception.

For me, Merdie is actually a Bakemono too. She’s mostly counted as a combatant more than as a person to protect within the Ernol family.

And yet, there’s somebody stupid enough to insult such a woman like her.

“B-But you’re one of them too!!”

Right on cue, that “Stupid Guy”’s revival was complete.

He was just brought to life once again but —

“Shaddup, meow!!”

He was punched by the Beastkin Princess’s Fist with all her strength.