I Was a Small Fish When I Reincarnated, but It Seems That I Can Become a Dragon, so I Will Do My Best - Extra Chapter 266
Sorry for the late update, irl almost killing me. Not now, Mr. Grim reaper!
9-14. Compensation
In the center of the roiling, boiling earth, a crimson flower of flame was in full bloom.
Even now, heat continued to radiate from it, and young Houen ran laughing around the fiery spectacle.
The way he frolicked gleefully seemed utterly childlike.
But something was off.
Houen was highly intelligent, and even when appearing in a child’s form, he never behaved or spoke in a manner befitting his apparent age.
The most he’d do was refer to himself as boku.
“…Oi, Abyss…”
Ouren voiced his uneasy premonition, keeping an eye on Houen playing in the distance.
“This… ultimate skill… what’s the compensation…?”
“I… don’t… know…”
Ouren kicked at the boiling earth, sending up crimson splashes.
While he took the fiery spray head-on, not even a speck of ember touched Houen.
“Oi, is that… really Houen? Abyss, you said you saw this once before, didn’t you? How was it back then?”
“I-I don’t remember… I didn’t notice anything that specific…”
“So if it didn’t leave much of a mark on your memory, the compensation for Houen’s ultimate skill back then must not have been too severe…”
But this time was different.
Something was distinctly abnormal.
Almost as if…
“A devil…”
Houen’s movements abruptly halted.
He pivoted sharply on his heel, pointing his toes toward them, tilting his head, and pressing a finger to his lips.
His gaze was unmistakably fixed on them.
“That bastard…! The skill’s taken over his consciousness, hasn’t it?!”
“Paah~”
“‘Water Barrier’!”
The moment Ouren activated his barrier, the water boiled.
Though it didn’t unleash a heatwave strong enough to evaporate the barrier instantly, the sheer heat was enough to cause the water to bubble violently. If it hadn’t been conjured by Ouren, it likely would have exploded.
“No restraint at all, huh?!”
“Ack, it’s so hot! What—what do we do?!”
“What do you mean what do we do?! We either kill him once or endure this as it is! Pick one!”
“Neither sounds good!”
“Dammit, and here I thought we’d dealt with the real monster already!!”
Ouren raised his arms to conjure more water.
It was impossible to know how long Houen’s consciousness would remain under the ultimate skill’s control. The only guaranteed way to stop him was to kill him once.
Yet no one wanted to harm their comrade.
Enduring the flames in a drawn-out standoff wasn’t much of an option either.
It turned out the most troublesome foe was the one closest to them.
“Never use an ultimate skill on a whim, Houen!”
The burning rogue blossom of flames laughed behind him.
At almost the same moment, fiery roots burst from the boiling ground with a loud crack.
The sheer absurdity of handling this situation left Ouren with no choice but to laugh.
Without ice magic, their options were limited. Even with it, there was no guarantee it would work.
To quell heat, water was the best option at the moment.
Even though the water instantly vaporized, Ouren’s conjured water could smother Houen’s flames.
There was no choice but to bet everything on it.
“No matter if I’ve got three hundred thousand mana, it’s still gonna run dry at this rate!”
He’d already used half his mana on earlier skills, leaving around 150,000.
The only option now was ‘Infinite Water Manipulation’.
Barriers scaled with the mana infused into them, but in this battle of sheer output, the most effective technique was one of overwhelming quantity.
It was like trying to extinguish a volcano with water.
One mistake and it would explode.
The slightest ember touching him would spell game over.
The difficulty made him want to laugh out loud.
“But no choice but to do it, huh?! Abyss! Get back!”
“O-Okay!”
“‘Infinite Water Manipulation’! All right, Houen, come at me!”
A torrent of water clashed with the tremendous heatwave.
It felt as though the heat had physical mass, as Ouren’s water leapt upward, colliding with an invisible barrier.
Water droplets separated from the torrent evaporated instantly.
“Taah~!”
“Shut up! Don’t talk with that body!”
An explosion erupted.
The collision of heat and water inevitably caused it.
The raw heat of the Crimson Lotus wasn’t something they could afford to leave unchecked.
Ouren increased the water output, gradually cooling the ground.
Despite attacking from all sides with water, the Crimson Lotus burned fiercely.
Burning for just a moment.
Because Crimson Lotus left nothing behind, it poured everything into its brief existence.
When the fiery roots touched the ground, it turned red-hot and melted.
Cooling it with water caused explosions.
Yet finally, the water seeped into the earth, cooling it and shrinking the Crimson Lotus Flames’ heated domain.
Ouren’s water began to saturate the ground.
The battle remained a tug of war, but it seemed the Crimson Lotus didn’t last long.
Still, they couldn’t let their guard down.
“Bah~”
With a light tap of his toe, Houen summoned a massive ball of flames behind him.
“Urgh! Inferno Pillar?!”
Why behind him?
Ouren was puzzled but quickly realized the reason.
“No way…! Water Barrier! Abyss, get down—wait, it’s not gonna make it!”
The next moment, a high-pitched cracking boom echoed, scattering the water created by Ouren’s Infinite Water Manipulation and the flames of the Crimson Lotus.
Ouren recognized this skill.
But the one who should’ve been able to use it “Yuuzen” wasn’t here.
Which meant—
“The evolved Explosive Fist . Yuuzen’s…!”