AN: This time the chapter is a little shorter.
Also, Chloe-nēsan sure seems to be popular (lol)
This time it’s a woman’s muscly arm against a man’s slender one.
TN: Yay i managed to get another chapter out rather quickly! ^^
Be sure to take a look at the footnotes at the bottom as I explain a few things.
Mouseover the conversations to read the romaji!
Revan who was lying on the ground, quickly stood up. He had narrowly avoided being hit in the face by Chole’s Kon, by crossing both his arms to block it. Seeing both how the arm guards he wore, ‘Kanshou’, didn’t even have a scratch on them, he once again felt grateful to Hiyuki.
Though, when Hiyuki herself heard this, she muttered something very worrisome. Then turning to face Chloe once again-
「*Haigh…*」he sighed.
Using the same [Thunder Legs][1] technique he had used against Hiyuki the day before, as if sliding on the ground, he closed their gap almost instantly.
The Kon’s weakness is the space between the user’s outstretched arms. Getting in close to Chole, though her attacks could come from above and below, left and right, or from the front; she wouldn’t be able to make movements of any significant threat.
No, her movements were precise and incorporated feints, in addition to attacks that upset one’s sense of distance. Even a first rate warrior will inevitably take some damage. With her at the centre, Chloe formed a storm-like sphere of attacks.
However, now that Revan understood the special characteristic of her weapon, [extendable length], his eyes could easily follow her movements.
Revan had easily jumped in up close and personal with Chloe, and in the next instant, his right hand disappeared as the sound of multiple blows echoed almost simultaneously. It was a flash of jabs so swift that it was not even visible to most of the spectators, whose eyes were fixed firmly on the match.
「Tsk. 」
At such a close-range the Kon can’t be used. Having concluded such, Chloe took her weapon in her right hand and with her left, fired off a backfist towards Revan’s back. Naturally, she didn’t expect this sort of attack to actually hit; the purpose of such an attack was to force him to avoid it and take up some distance between them, so whether her attack hit or missed wasn’t really relevant. However-
「Ha-! 」
「Funn-!! 」
Slipping past the strike, Revan struck his left elbow into Chloe’s exposed torso with all his might.
「…!」
The sound of a violent blow that struck made the audience think the match was over, yet Revan, whose attack should have decided the match, with his eyes wide open in astonishment, quickly distanced himself from Chloe as if he’d been played. Holding his elbow tightly, he groaned in pain.
◇◆◇◆◇
The moment the attack had hit, Asmina had been all smiles, but moments later the blood had drained from her face and she became noisy and confused. Hiyuki, who had a somewhat stunned expression on her face, explained:
-said Hiyuki while tilting her head.
◇◆◇◆◇
In response to Chloe’s words, Revan smiled bitterly. Then taking his right hand off his aching elbow, he clenched it into a fist and took a combat ready stance.
In response to Chloe who shrugged with a somewhat apathetic expression, Revan answered earnestly.
This time, his words put Chloe in a good mood, and she laughed heartily.
◇◆◇◆◇
Asmina grabbed the shoulders of Hiyuki who was sitting beside her, and shook her violently. Incidentally, Zisis and the other members of the lion tribe had backed away from them from fear of being dragged into it.
There were two people here who were having a rather unproductive, yet disturbing conversation.
◇◆◇◆◇
Once again, Revan tries to evade Chloe’s fierce onslaught and get up close to her, but Chloe’s attacks are now focused on his left hand, which he can no longer use.
—it’s a very effective tactic.
For beastmen, there is no shame in attacking an opponent’s weakness. The fault lies with the one who allowed their weakness to be exposed.
Judging that things would only continue to get worse for him at this rate, Revan decided to bet all or nothing on a single strike. Dodging the tip of the Kon that was aimed at his foot, he then stepped on it using the [Thunder Leg] skill. The tremor that was transmitted through the staff momentarily paralysed both of Chloe’s arms, allowing Revan to rush into the narrow space between her outstretched arms[2].
She must have been expecting him to do that to some extent, as the instant she regained use of her arms, her Kon ripped through the air, swooping down onto Revan’s left flank.
Revan blocked the attack with the armour on his left hand, yet having been severely weakened, his left hand failed to muster the necessary strength to kill the impact, and a dull sound was heard.
-Did it break?
However, he’d already taken this into consideration. If he moved while protecting his injured left hand, his body movements would inevitably become unnatural, and he would expose many openings to the enemy. Plus, his centre of gravity would have become unstable, reducing the effectiveness of his attacks. Thus he had no choice but to pretend like his left hand was uninjured, and use it to block that attack as he would usually have done. This outcome was within his expectations.
Confining the reality of his broken left arm to a corner of his mind, he ignored the pain in his left hand as if the pain simply ‘did not exist’; then without pause, Revan made a half-turn, and putting all his kinetic energy into his right elbow, he slammed it into Chloe’s solar plexus.
「De-yahh! 」
Receiving the attack, as if it were a repeat of earlier events, Chloe grinned sinisterly.
At the same instant, the sound of a huge blow, which could not possibly have come from the collision of flesh, echoed across the arena; and fissures ran across the ground arena in all directions, with the two of them in the centre.
With these final words, Chloe lost consciousness and collapsed as Revan supported her.
After a moment of silence, the crowd erupted in to deafeningly loud cheers and screams.
◇◆◇◆◇
The first match of the first round of the preliminaries is over. The Winner: Revan of the Lion tribe. The Loser: Chloe of the Rabbitman tribe.
After that, the rest of the matches proceeded favourably. All four matches of the first round concluded without incident.
◇◆◇◆◇
After returning to the castle and confirming today’s results, I let out a sigh.
-said the Beast King nonchalantly, as he lounged on a sofa, drinking delicious-looking coffee, which for the time being is only available in my country.
Well, I could have healed him on the spot, but as an uninvolved third party, had I healed him, there might have been people who raised complaints later on. So I refrained from doing so.
By the way, saying that clothes would interfere with the healing, Asmina gleefully stripped Revan naked, and placed her hands directly on to his body to heal him; but was there any real need to do that?
The last time she healed him, she just did it normally from on top of his clothes and it worked just fine….
It’s probably something I shouldn’t poke my nose into. Yup.
Thinking that, I turned back towards the Beast King’s thick face[5], to change the topic.
Even though I invited him to come along, he made up all kinds of excuses to not attend.
Mikoto, who had been waiting patiently at my side, bowed before answering.
Then, I suddenly remembered something that had been bothering me since the preliminary match, and decided to ask the Beast King about it.
-he answered instantly.
-The beast king laughed cheerfully.
Revan’s going to have a tough time of it. At the very least he can rest properly today and restore his spirit in preparation for tomorrow….
Nah, that’s not going to happen. Asmina’s in the same tent afterall….
Well, all I can say is, good luck then.
TN: Personally I’m kinda surprised Hiyuki-sama seems to be so knowledgeable about combat, like she’s some sort of expert who has many years of combat experience. Is it the innate knowledge of her body I wonder? Or just a short period of training with the Beast King is enough for her to gain such insight?
[1] The skill name in kanji is 震脚, where 震 can be ‘thunder’ in the I Ching sense, or quaking/shaking. Personally I think ‘Leg Quake’ might be a better translation, but as I’m far from certain and don’t know anything about the mysticism of I Ching, I will stick with Madospicy’s [Thunder Legs] translation for the skill term.
[2] Imagine you are holding a staff with both your outstretched arms. The space between the staff and your body is a major weak point of two handed staff weapons, which Revan repeatedly seeks to exploit. Japanese has a nice, convenient term for this – futokoro. English does not. The term futokoro appears in this chapter multiple times. I’ve tried to use phrases like ‘up close and personal’ as a substitute, but ultimately this time I felt I had to describe it word for word.
[3] The term here is otoko no kyouji (男の矜持), which means a man’s pride/dignity/self-respect. What Revan is saying here is that no ‘real’ man would ever hit a woman, especially in the face. To do so would be dishonorable and not worthy of being a man. That sort of sentiment.
[4] The kanji for regular magic in this series is魔術 (majutsu), but Asmina’s technique is called法術 (hōjutsu). Unlike English where everything is lumped together as ‘Magic’, Japanese has various concepts- mahou (the usual magic), majutsu (magic arts / magecraft), tenhou (divine/holy magic), senjutsu, onmyoudou, etc. (the list goes on). All these terms have different meanings in different fantasy works. The 法 in Asmina’s houjutsu refers to something related to Buddhism and Dharma, the natural order of things, etc… Seeing that the Beastmen culture is primarily eastern involving a lot of Chinese and Buddhist concepts, I guess the term ‘Dharmic Arts’ is an appropriate translation for houjutsu.
[5] The Japanese expression is tetsumenpi (鉄面皮) which lit. means “iron skinned face”. In English we’d usually say ‘thick-skinned’, meaning someone who is shameless and brazen. I couldn’t think of a way to use the expression in the same sentence structure as Hiyuki-sama is actually turning to face the Beast King.
So, I have a head-cannon about why Hiyuki-sama is knowledgeable about combat, it’s been a while since I read this story though, so correct me if I am wrong.
But I remember Hiyuki-sama originally being a guy who played an mmorpg, where his character in the game was the body he/she is now inhabiting. To get where Hiyuki-sama was on the ranking list in-game, and where she is in terms of power and such, a certain level of playing and understanding of the game is required. In this case, Hiyuki-sama’s knowledge of combat probably comes from playing the game, and from any research that he did to climb higher in the game.
Also, your translations are a treat, thank you for the chapter.
I have a last thing to add, though it is about a note you left on the previous chapter. The aniki butt comment is most likely a reference to Cho Aniki, the popular muscle-man video game series in Japan.
thanks for your reply. aah when it comes to obscure pop culture references that’s always a hard one. I always google stuff im unsure of or think might be a reference, but it this time it didn’t bring me anything. One of the funniest img search results for 兄貴尻 is Ghislaine’s ass from Mushoku Tensei hahaha. anyway seems like Cho Aniki is pretty old but it certainly fits and it makes sense!.
I’ll go ahead and edit the footnotes in the previous chapter. thanks!
if remembered correctly, because her status is weaker than any of her followers. powered by paranoid, she trained and integrated her skills into fluid movement, to give her more chances to runaway in case of betrayal.
thank you for picking this up. only overlord clone i enjoy as much as real one. is it really hard for author to not give mc’s side complete omnipotent or devolve into romance harem?