Chapter 99 - Martial God

I had to extinguish the flame that was ten meters away from me using only the force of my punch.

I thought the difficulty level was quite high.

I should be more serious.

I released a huge amount of mana.

“What a great ‘battle aura’!”*

The imperial beast guard was dumbfounded.

In Vestier, ‘battle aura’ referred to the overflowing life force from the body, apparently.

However, in this world, there is no such thing as ‘battle aura’.

The ‘battle aura’ that beastkin referred to—it was non-attribute mana.

I discovered it by chance while using my magical perception when I observed how the beastkin did their combat training yesterday.

The beastkin wrapped their bodies with plain mana while fighting.

Beastkin said they don’t use any magic other than body-strengthening spells, but actually, they were also using magic suit spells.

The magic suit’s combat skill increase was proportional to the beastkin’s power.

Since this magic suit doesn’t elicit a response from the magic detection crystal orbs, it was ‘not’ magic. In other words, the beastkin thought this ‘battle aura’ was another type of aura.

By the way, in the eyes of the other races, beastkin were seen as combat-crazy people who specialized in the law of nature.

In reality, the strong beastkin would master the use of mana and then fight while further strengthening their high-level physical abilities. This was not widely known.

In this world, specialization in magic was considered stronger, so it was more favored than specialization in physiques.

Fighting effectively with magic was considered superior to raw physical strength.

It was great news for a Sage like me.

Regardless, it was quite difficult to use a magic suit to reinforce combat ability. Even if you were clad in the suit, it would be meaningless if you couldn’t control it properly.

Most of the beastkin would release non-attribute mana without any real precision, and they wouldn’t attempt to compress mana and use it properly.

They probably didn’t even know the true strength of the magic suit.

Well, regardless, the reason this magic suit—I don’t even know if that’s what it was called—was stronger for beastkin, who possessed high-level combat ability, was due to its high level of status.

Let’s demonstrate the proper use of the magic suit to the imperial beast guard.

I wrapped and compressed the mana I released all around my body.

Afterward, I left the bare minimum amount of mana to support my movements and gathered the rest onto my right arm.

My right arm glowed faintly.

After condensing my mana to this point, I could sense that my mana had accumulated even without using Magic Perception.

“W, wow. All this colossal _battle aura_ on his hand…”

I’d be troubled if you were shocked by this much.

The performance would start from here.

This was different from the time we took the target destruction test when we entered the capital. Rather than power, I aimed for speed.

I stretched my right arm forward, and then I aligned my stance to the flame.

I lightly drew the right arm that was wrapped with the magic suit backward. Then I froze my body with the magic suit I had on my lower half.

Oh right, let’s borrow Merdie’s move.

“Flying Fist!”

I extended my right hand rapidly with all the speed I could muster.

My punch went beyond the speed of sound, and a sonic boom occurred.

The condensed air blasted through, splashing the water in the channel and easily blowing off the flame beneath the Martial God’s statue.

However, without reducing its speed, the air bullet I released blasted the foot of the Martial God’s statue.

“Ah!”

Oh, shocks, I messed up! I-I didn’t imagine it would be this powerful...

Recently, I became better at using the right amount of force in magic, but I’m not that great at controlling my body.

I would be scolded because of this, right?

With that thought, I turned around to face everyone.

“To think that a human would be able to extinguish that flame.”

Before I knew it, a gigantic lion beastkin stood right before me.

His body was way larger than the beastkin king’s, and I could sense divinity in him.

“...Martial God?”

“Indeed.”

Whoa, he really manifested!

“...”

Even if I say so, I suddenly realized, albeit too late, that I didn’t have any business with him.

Huh? Why did I decide to join this ‘Blow the Fire Off and the Martial God will Appear Challenge’ in the first place?

“Ahm, I apologize for destroying your statue.”

In the meantime, I should apologize for accidentally breaking the foot of his sculpture.

So saying, the Martial God clapped his hands twice, and the foot of the Martial God’s statue that was broken into pieces became whole again.

As expected from one of the gods of this world.

But I was concerned about how he _used magic_ to fix the Martial God’s statue.

I confirmed that the Martial God’s mana was poured into the statue using Magic Perception, so there was no doubt about it.

“Alright, let us hear the reason you have called out to me. What is your desire? A one-on-one fight with me? Or perhaps a mortal combat? Or is it a duel?”

No, no, no, no, no! Don’t you have anything in your head besides fighting?

What a muscle-brain!

“No, ahm, sorry. I was just curious whether you would truly appear so….”

“Huh!? You mean you didn’t have any business with me, yet you called me out! I’m the Martial God, you know… Alright, in that case, I’ll beat you up until I’m satisfied!! Then I’ll forgive you.”

You just wanted to fight, after all!

I could sense an intense killing intent from the Martial God.

Tina and the others would be in danger if this killing intent leaked outside.

I immediately activated several barriers to protect the others from its influence.

“Oops, well, let’s stop fooling around.”

“Was it really a joke?”

“Yeah. The Creator God will scold me if I do someone in.”

The Martial God’s killing intent calmed down, so I lifted those barriers.

“However, what’s with you? You didn’t even flinch though you got my killing aura right in your face.”

“It was thanks to Martial God-sama being lenient, perhaps?”

That’s what I said, but it was probably due to the curse of the Evil God.

Even if I was threatened, I wouldn’t feel any abnormal conditions like consternation or panic.

“I earnestly intimidated you, though… Well, that’s enough. So, are you sure you don’t wish for anything? Questions are welcome too.”

Even if you tell me that, I really didn’t have anything in particular.

“How about everyone?”

“Ahm, I have a question, meow!”

Merdie came to my side.

“You’re the daughter of the current beastkin king, huh. What is it?”

“Why did you forbid the use of magic in this country, meow?”

Merdie complained in a tearful voice.

Merdie was banned from using magic during combat, so she couldn’t win against beastkin who had lower levels than her.

She asked her father, the king of the beastkin, but he stubbornly answered, ‘Because the Martial God decided it.’

In this country, the strongest ruled, and their will was forced on all.

However, those so-called strongest were recognized as powerful because they didn’t use magic in combat.

Merdie was strong enough even without magic, but her speed and attack power would lag far behind the beastkin specializing in physiques.

That’s why, in order not to lose against the body-tempering beastkin, she engaged in intensive training to speedily invoke magic. She improved to the point that she wouldn’t lose to this country’s beastkin who had the same level as her in combat that allowed magic.

However, the beastkin didn’t acknowledge that combat method, so she ran away from this country.

“Magic is also my power, meow. What’s wrong with getting stronger by using magic, meow?”

“No, nothing’s wrong with that.”

“Eh?”

Huh? What did that mean?

Why did the Martial God deny it?

“It would be good to use anything you can use. If you can be stronger with magic, then it’s good to use it. To begin with, I, who am the Martial God—”

The Martial God stretched his fist in front of us.

Suddenly, his fist was engulfed in flames.

“—had the occupation of Magical Pugilist when I was alive.”