Pioneering the Apocalyptic World - Chapter 82

Chapter 17: It’s all okay if you win, winning is what count

The girl and I face each other with a gap of about ten meters.
A middle-aged man stepped out in our middle.

“I’ll be the one to watch over this match. If your opponent becomes unable to fight or says that she surrender, it’s over. Furthermore, as our princess said earlier, using offensive items and magic will also disqualify you.”

Hmm? She is a princess? Well, I think the meaning is like as the village chief’s daughter or something like that, but I’ll have to ask about that later.
However, in that position, is it okay to take a groom without permission? And on top of that, to take someone from outside. Or maybe there’s a custom that others can’t object to things you’ve won with your own strength.
…… Well, it doesn’t matter. If I win, it stops mattering.

“Both of you are ready to go, right. … Start!”

At the same time as the man’s shout, the girl rushes forward. She thrusts out her spear with force.
But I was expecting that. I didn’t panic and shifted my body to the side to dodge the thrust.
I would like to give her a counter, but the girl is not that naive either. She swept her spear sideways, so I had to raise my spear to guard, and our spears hilts hit each other.
I thought about sliding the hilt and stepping forward, but the girl jumped backwards and we returned to the start.

“You looked like a pushover, but as expected, you can fight this much.”

“Even looking like this, I have a fair amount of experience in combat.”

With our Uru-san as the representative, if you think that strength depends only in the appearance, you’ll get the rug pulled out from under you, you can’t even understand that…? Is this girl be okay like this?
No, it’s not the time to worry about her. Let’s focus on the battle, focus.

“So… How about this!”

The girl kicks the stone at her feet toward my face.
…… Heh~… It’s not like “It’s invalid if you fight dirty!” or something like that.
I moved a single step to the side, dodging with the minimum movement possible.

“You have good eyes, don’t you!’

Still, it didn’t change that my vision was blocked for a moment. In that short time the girl closes the distance and a rushes in.
As the girl rushed forward, I stepped back and dealt with the thrust.

“… Isn’t Rion stronger than I thought?”

“Mu? Rion’s eyes are good from the start? It’s just that her body usually can’t keep with her movements.”

I can hear the conversation between Uru and Regulus saying something like that.
That’s right, even if I can see it, I can’t move my body that fast. My physical abilities are poor…

But if you can’t move, you only need to ‘make it able to move’.

That’s right… The sponge cake I ate before the match.
By eating that, I gained a buff that increased attack and speed.

Cowardly?
Hahaha, that kind of thing are fine as long you don’t get caught. Besides, it’s not like they said that you shouldn’t eat food that gives buffs!
Like my opponent kicked a stone in my direction, you can think that things that are not explicitly prohibited are basically allowed. If you make a fuss, I’ll return it with a ‘You didn’t said anything about it’. In the first place, I want them to praise me just for being polite and agreed with my opponent’s customs by accepting the duel.
I mean, even like this I’m being patient, okay? If I do whatever I like and they become hostile, It will be me the one who will get in trouble in the future, so I’m just not going to do it.
For example, a stone block is not an offensive item, right. What happens if I drop this above my opponent’s head? After that, I could dig below her feet with a shovel and drop her in hole, and then I can just bury the hole with dirt.
My thoughts are dirty?
Hahaha, what are you saying just now. Well, Regulus’s life is at stake, I won’t accept a match with a slim chance of winning.

“Tch…!”

Whether she had reached the limit of her patience or she was short-tempered, the girl put her strength, in a state where I could say that she was putting too much, and unleashed her spear at the fastest speed she had ever used.

“Heey!”

“Huh!?”

I matched the timing and struck the girl’s spear upwards.
The girl whose arms have completely stretched out, was unable to recover her posture in time. Taking advantage of that gap, I slipped into her now unguarded bosom, then struck her solar plexus with the butt of my spear.

“Guhaa–”

The girl couldn’t take it and bend over, and in that pose she was blown away.
I couldn’t miss this golden opportunity. I ran after her and put my spear in the girl’s neck??

“Y… You!!”

“Ouch…!”

On the verge of it, even while groaning, the girl grabbed dirt from the ground and threw it at me. When I reflexively guarded my face, she lifted up her legs as if she was dancing a breakdance, and kicked the arm that I used to guard.
How dangerous, a little more and she was about to hit my chin…! Compared to that, even if my arm hurts a little, it’s enough to cover it, so I’m saved.
While I was pulling back, the girl got up with a backflip and took a distance from me again. She is holding her stomach, so It’s not like is a restart from the beginning.

“I, still??”

She let go of her spear when she was blown away by my blow earlier, but the girl didn’t lose her fighting spirit and raises her fists.
However, it was crushed by the following words.

“No princess, It’s your loss.”

The man who was the referee stopped her.
… Hmm, so you weren’t the kind of person who favors your relatives.
When I was impressed, the person who was stopped seems to be unconvinced and tried to argue.

“Why!? I can still fight!”

“… The reason that you still are able to move now is because of the mercy of that person, right?”

The second half are words for me. I spin the spear around and then shrug my shoulders.

“Princess, if it was the blade that stabbed you in the stomach, you would have died in the worst case?”

“Ah……”

The girl was stunned by the fact that the man told her.
…… Even if it can be healed with potions, I was unwilling to cause serious injury. That’s why I purposely turned the spear around, but I honestly didn’t expected that my thought would be noticed.
I still had some leeway and there was a difference between bare hands and weapons, so I don’t think I would have lost even if I had continued like this, but if I don’t have to do anything extra, it’s the best to end here.
While tapping my shoulder with the spear, I ask her just in case.

“If you want to continue, I’m okay with it?”

“… No, I will admit my defeat.”

I let out a big sigh of relief at the girl who accepted obediently even though she was frustrated.
Well, even though I thought I could almost win because of the buff, I’m glad I was able to win properly without making any mistakes.

“Whoa! Rion is amazing!”

When my victory was confirmed, Regulus let out a shout of joy.

Putting aside asking her to listen to my request for the time being, we decided to go to her village together first. As I expected, she seems to be the village chief’s daughter.
I was a little nervous because I wondered if she would hold a grudge against me for losing the match, but the girl was taking it well and seems to respect me, the winner…. I’ll have to take the buff thing to the grave.
The girl’s name seems to be Eris. She said to be a tiger beastman.
She said that they run around this wilderness ??It seems that it was originally a grassland. But by the time she was born, It had already turned into a wilderness, and it seems that she had never actually seen Its original form?? With her horses.

“In the past few years, the number of monster attacks has increased, and we can’t even run long distances. Because that the number of men was decreasing, I wanted to increase it, but I lost, so we can’t insist on that.”

Come to think of it, she said that the reason the horses ran away was because of a monster attack. Does this mean that the area is getting worse little by little?
While talking about this and that, Uru remained clinging to my back and didn’t particularly intervene, Regulus was receiving apologies from the young man saying things like “I’m sorry for that…” while talking with them.
After letting the horses walk for a while and climbing to the top of a small hill.

“Over there is our village.”

Eris said so, while pointing to the village at the bottom of the hill.