BATTLE OR ALIVE
Chapter 23: The Golden Haired Girl

“Ara, it looks like we have an uninvited guest, yes.”

“Kh- like mana-”

Putting a Dual Knife around an unknown person's neck. Guided him to get down from the three-story building to be able to know his figure.

Mai who carried her from above looked less happy, she made a troubled face with rising emotions visible on her face.

“Alright, let's see who our guest is.”

Jell approached, the person who attacked them using a thick robe that made them unable to see the face of this person.

Mai put the person roughly on the ground. Falling down and getting rough treatment the man's voice was inevitable coming out of his mouth, it was the voice of a woman.

Jell certainly noticed it, opened the robe and as expected this mysterious figure was a woman.

But not just an ordinary woman, she is beautiful, very beautiful. Her beauty could rival Mai or perhaps surpass her, Jell could bet that there was an ordinary man who was in his current position already in make sure the man would instantly fall for her.

The long hair in pigtails, bangs that covered next to her face and eyes, and the most dazzling thing was that this woman's hair was golden yellow.

Jell at the sight of her was certainly not enchanted, recalling her words when she first arrived in this world, she would not be enchanted to any other woman besides Mai.

But unlike Emma, she is fascinated by the beauty of this woman, even though they are fellow women but the beauty emitted by this mysterious woman can make women also fall in love with her.

The woman who was unrobed suddenly covered her face, covered her robe again and she slightly moved away from them.

“You-you... Saw it..?”

“Ha?”

Asking something strange, Jell answered him naturally. Not caring about random questions from her, Jell approached the woman and asked.

“So, who are you?”

Asking his figure is the same as asking for information, to find out the figure of this woman the introduction is needed. Jell didn't mean to be weird, just that he thought introductions were needed at this time.

The mysterious woman did not answer him, she just remained silent. Just exasperating because he had experienced something like this when he worked as Olokoto's guard, Jell reminisced.

But in contrast to Jell, Mai approached the woman with an angry face, she prepared her Dual Knife like she intended to kill the woman.

“Hey, Jell asked you.”

The mysterious woman only looked at Mai from below, she did not change her expression which was only flat-faced. Mai who was getting an unpleasant treatment from this assaulting woman, she started to heat up.

“You want to kill me?”

The mysterious woman let out her voice, stammering was what she asked the angry Mai. This mysterious woman was very calm in her current state, like she was only going to settle this quickly, this woman was too dismissive of Mai.

“It's enough Mai, it looks like she has a reason.”

Calming Mai, Jell approached the mysterious woman. Squatting in front of him to equalize their gaze Jell looked at him very sharply.

The mysterious woman looked at by turning her eyes away and finally stood up, wiping her dirty robe she stood up and flicked her hair.

“I want to ask you something.”

The woman asked while turning her position away. He did not look directly at Jell and instead turned his gaze away, the impression this woman gave him was very ugly, was what Emma felt when she saw the situation.

“Ask what?”

As Jell stood, she asked what she wanted to ask.

“What are you, the one who defeated the strongest adventurer hitan, Lhava?”

While saying her question, the woman finally looked at Jell with a very sharp and intimidating look. A black aura emerged from him signifying an enormous anger over what had happened back then.

“True, I beat that hotass guy.”

But Jell was not someone that could be easily subdued, while wiping her gloves she answered the mysterious woman's question casually. The answer and tone that Jell uses is a very doubtful person, from his tone of course it can be felt that he underestimated Lhava.

“So you, yes.”

(Is he hooked?)

The reason for Jell's words to belittle Lhava was simple, she wanted to know if this woman would be provoked by anger when she underestimated Lhava, was she one of Lhava's women? Does he want revenge? Is what Jell asked in his heart.

But the answer to the bluff that Jell had failed to destroy, this woman answered him with an answer that made Jell unable to not be surprised.

“It looks like you were wrong, I'm not one of the women who likes Lhava. So a lowly bluff like that won't work for me.”

(He's aware of his bluff?)

Not only Jell, but also for Mai who was surprised to see that the bluffing done by Jell did not affect him.

Fufufu...

Jell laughed a little because he did not understand the bluff he was doing was realized by the enemy, it might be the same as what the woman said earlier, that Jell was wrong. And in this condition Mai put up a careful position. Only Emma doesn't know what happened between the three.

“So what do you want?”

Jell went straight to the point, not using a ploy he just asked what the reason for the woman's arrival was.

“I just want something.”

“And what is it.”

Turn around and stretch out his hand while pointing at Jell.

“You must be my slave.”

The faces of Jell and Mai instantly changed, not just the face but also the aura. The aura released by both of them was gripping and frightening, but not just the two, but Emma was the most out of control when listening to the mysterious woman's words.

Her kitsune came out from the pendant she was using and the same as Emma, the fox also looked extremely angry. Did he follow the feelings of his master's heart?

“You said a very interesting thing, yes. Make me a slave? I was asked for this for the first time. Alright, I thank you with pleasure.”

In contrast to his first ploy, Jell was now really serious. He put on an extremely intimidating face and naturally the mysterious woman was able to sense it clearly. The enormous aura that flowed all over Jell's body, was like Jell's wearing a cloak of aura.

“Let's do that, and as a bet you want what?”

(This guy is smarter than I thought, he's interesting!)

Jell was inexhaustibly impressed by this woman, she was still able to think clearly in the moment she felt the pressure and aura that Jell was releasing

“For that I just want, you owe me something very big.”

“What the fuck, tell me what exactly you want.”

“I've said no, I just want you to owe me something. It can indeed be a very big thing, but the request is just indebted, how?”

Jell explained her request, in her request she was not planning anything, but still thought that by asking for such a request it might be useful someday.

“Alright, if that's what you want. But remember this well, a slave will never argue and ask his master. In other words, if you lose, your request is useless. Or, do you think you can win against me?”

Jell is cornered by the explanation that if she loses her request will be rejected by this woman, but that is if Jell loses.

Jell was speechless and smilingly looking at the woman sharply, her eyes very sharp as a needle piercing through the eyeball. The woman fell silent and froze looking at her gaze, her reaction was the same as the first time Lhava had gotten pressure from Jell.

“I hate many attitudes, and one of them is the one who thinks that he is better than me.”

This woman's face turned irritated, hearing Jell's words made her hot.

Reversing his position and looking back at Jell he showed Jell a petty look, just like Jell was just a person who did not need to use force to defeat him, Jell was completely underestimated.

“Hah, do you think you can win? Don't be arrogant just because you were able to defeat that bastard Lhava, he's different from me, I'm a thousand times stronger than him.”

Emma puts on a black aura, she doesn't accept that Jell is denigrated and it makes her want to destroy the woman. But she was stopped by Mai, holding her back Mai tried to calm herself down to not act without thinking.

“Not to be trite anymore, let's just start.”

The woman proposes a duel immediately, and Jell agrees.

For the dueling venue, they did not go to the arena behind the guild. That's because there is a big event that the competition is being carried out. So for the duel they will be done in the field in front of the gate. Because there were also many fields made for the duel, so they decided to use it.

Taking their respective positions, Jell was in the eastern part of the arena and the woman was in the western part of the arena. Both of them were already in a prepared position, Jell took out his sword, which he would normally only take out when the battle began.

“Jell will only take out his sword when the battle begins, but this time he exposes his sword first. Was he careful with that woman?”

Mai who was outside the arena noticed that, Emma who was not aware of it asked what made Jell always do that, and Mai answered him clearly.

“Indeed rarely in the past. But, in the duel there is a thing that must be considered is to see how long the sword belongs to the opponent, it is to aim so that we can know the extent of the attack that can be done by the enemy.”

“By just doing that little thing we can master the whole match, so?”

“Nn.”

“Onii-chan was so great to the point of thinking about it. As expected of him. But, not when Onii-chan fought Lhava did he pull out his sword first?”

Mai is a little surprised that Emma can quickly digest the information she just learned, and for that reason Jell shows her sword during her battle with Lhava the second time is also described.

“That he did because he appreciated the strength of determination that Lhava held, even so actually Jell intentionally did that because he saw that Lhava did not know that he would research the opponent's sword before fighting, even so Jell actually did that because he saw that Lhava did not know that he would research the opponent's sword before fighting, so no more need to hide it.”

“So, during that first battle, Onii-chan got information about Lhava's ignorance? As expected.”

“Ahaha, more or less like that.”

Seeing that Emma was amazed by every study that Jell did in every battle made Mai feel a little sick because she could not show such a cool thing.

Because it was cool to talk the two of them without realizing that the duel between the two had begun.

In the arena just as he often did, he simply stayed where he stood. While his opponent was running around to find the right point for his attack.

This woman carried a weapon in her hand, while raising a sniper-type weapon she ran towards the direction of 10 Jell and sat down while preparing her weapon to attack.

(Class Markshman, huh? Let's see how strong you are.)

Jell simply watched and saw him preparing for his attack.

“Oh, Onii-chan is analyzing the enemy, right?”

“Nn.”

(Let's see how strong you are, arrogant lady.)

Preparation was done, the first attack would be done by the woman, she saw the scope and directed a shot right in Jell's head.

“If you keep quiet, you may not realize that you have lost, mr. black cloak.”

The shot was launched, with high speed darting towards his head.

(What shameless arrogance, just staying in the arena against a Markshman, has he gone crazy? With this ended already, with this–)

Zing!

The woman's eyes didn't lie, she had seen that the bullet she had added was right at Jell's, but now it wasn't there.

“Shooting speed exceeds 900 meters per second. Really, is that really a weapon that existed in the middle ages?”

The woman's eyes could no longer turn, she could not believe that the bullet that was supposed to hit the target's head could be slashed with a sword.

Reawakening herself, the woman ran in the other direction while shooting bullets in a row towards Jell, but as a result, Jell was able to easily repel her with a sword.

Jell just stayed there, while fending off the incoming bullets, Jell stared and watched the woman's every move.

“Feel this. Of all the bullets I have, you're the strongest, Mega Shot.”

The bullet added differently this time, this time the bullet looked bigger and also luminous. Darting from the weapon, the bullet shot towards Jell, but this time at a much faster speed.

“Eh, good start.”

Directing his sword in a cross direction, he slashed the bullet that was pointing towards him. The split rumble released a huge shockwave and made Jell close his eyes to protect his vision.

The attack this time did not pay off, Jell was easily able to fend off the attack.

This woman did not despair and continued to attack Jell relentlessly, attacking from various directions and the result of her attacks did not give any injuries at all.

And a game like this happens for five minutes.

The woman is very persistent to carry out a direct attack on him, and the attack directed is always on the head. The attacks he did varied every position and place he pitched.

The attacks he has released are three skills, “Mega Shot”, “Multi Shot”, and “Through Shot”

For Jell who only did defense and not at all did attack finally feel bored with his actions, the woman still shot her bullets nonstop and continued to try to get to Jell.

“Hey, this is getting boring. When are you going to bring out your true power?”

Saying it made this woman make a difficult face, she felt angry when Jell said about her true strength.

Not caring about Jell's previous words, this woman continued to lash out relentlessly. But this time his attack had started to make Jell have to take steps to avoid the attack.

“Don't be arrogant just yet. Feel this, Destroyer attack, Laser Blast.”

A laser came out of his weapon, this attack was different from the skill he had used earlier, this was a skill of ‘B’ level.

“It looks like you've started getting more serious.”

Jell ran from her footing to avoid the attack this woman had made.

(Finally getting Jell out of survival mode, hopefully what Jell expects is the same as it wants.)

Seeing the progress in the duel, Mai commented on the action taken by Jell.

Jell advanced and headed towards the woman, the woman who was in her direction directly running from her footing to dodge and to make a gap from her attack.

If in terms of basic balance, it can be determined victory has been achieved by Jell, because he is a Fighter.

In the Class that is played has advantages and disadvantages of each, the picture is like a game of stone-scissors-paper. The stone defeated the scissors but lost against the paper, and vice versa, and so did the Class system that existed in this world.

Jell who is a Fighter is clearly fighting the mysterious woman who is a Marskman.

But that's if you look at it in terms of basic assessment, but what if you look at it in terms of strategy and opportunity? If using this assessment, a Masrksman did not rule out the possibility of winning against a Fighter.

And that second appraisal was what Mai was thinking about and using in seeing the battle between the two.

Back to the arena

Jell who stepped up and ran after the mysterious woman, was preparing with her sword. Jell stretched out her sword back to be ready to slash the jiga to find an opportunity.

The woman being chased also seemed unwilling to hand over the victory to Jell easily. He was still running and kept his distance from Jell while firing a few explosive bullets to add to the chances.

Running around the arena, this woman was finally unable to hold back for Jell to give up chasing after her. He decides he will shoot Jell immediately after he lands and will finish him off with one fatal strike.

Run and throw the last bomb in his leg pocket. It opens a regular bomb, but it's a Smoke Grenade. Smoke came out and spread rapidly throughout the arena, it seemed like the woman was using a bit of wind magic to push the smoke to spread further.

(With this I will finish, you will be mine.)

After throwing the Smoke Grenade, the woman immediately took a position and pointed her muzzle towards the track and was ready to shoot at any time. But his hope was crushed by a familiar sword blade behind him.

“How... Can..”

The blade of the sword touched the neck of this beautiful woman, the blade of the sword only touched her a little, but the neck of this woman immediately bled just from touching the blade of the sword.

“It looks like only up here.”

The last words were mentioned and the neck of the woman was slashed flawlessly, her slash was exquisite.

***

“That, hurts a little.”

“Sorry about that, after all there is no other way.”

“Haa..”

Right now the four of them were sitting and resting on the dining grounds in the guild. Right, the four of them, Jell, Mai, Emma, and the mysterious woman.

The mysterious woman said her pain from the duel, although they did not die outside of the duel, but would still feel pain.

There was no need for stale bases for their approach, after the mysterious woman woke up Jell invited her to the tomb for lunch together, and that was the case at this time.

“That was very fun, because it has arrived here, how about we eat first.”

The food is prepared and they eat well. As if the riots between the two had never happened, they had now forgotten about the previous events.

“This meat is different from having a palace.”

“Hm? You said something?”

“T-No, it's nothing!”

***

The food had finished at the meal, they were currently walking towards the inn, and of course the mysterious woman was still following them.

“Hey, you're the one who made a mess first, at least you said your name so I know who you are.”

Mai seemed to be getting annoyed at seeing the woman a little too relaxed and pretentious with them, more importantly they did not know what this woman's name was.

“Ara, have I not said my name yet?”

Tilting her head she forgot the important thing in a friendship, and it irritated Mai a little.

Putting his hand on his chest and arrogantly he said his name.

“My name is Rin, remember it well.”

“Only that?” (Mai responded coldly)

“What? What do you want me to say again? Is that not enough?” (Rin vexedly replied to him)

“Family name, you don't have?”

“K-If that... It doesn't matter, and you don't need to know.”

Rin rebelled a little because Mai asked her surname, but the fool with it, after all Mai was only indifferent when she was angry. But only one seems to think when Rin introduces herself, it's Emma.

“Rin? Rin's... Rin..”

“What's Emma?”

Jell who was aware of it tried to ask if there was anything.

“No, it's just that I feel familiar with that name.”

“Is that?”

The talk of these four people is like not remembering that they had a duel before, Rin looks angry at Mai for cheating him and Jell is helping Emma to think.

“Hei, briefly, it should not be like this.”

Rin is suddenly lightened by one thing and she blocks the way. Mai the one who was most affected by Rin's attitude, she made a vexed face.

“What's up? Move aside, you're blocking the way, you know?”

“I didn't tell you, I told him, Jell Kiyomizu.”

Jell who was carrying Emma on her shoulder and also helped her remember one thing, was a little shocked because their conversation suddenly changed topics.

“You, Jell, I did lose to you, but I want you to listen to my selfish request.”

While making a somewhat difficult face on her face, Rin asks for her request.

“I want, you helped me in my competition.”

His request was mentioned and of course it made Jell and the others surprised to hear his request.

Jell who from the beginning did not intend to participate in the competition, was suddenly asked to join by people he had just known. However he kept thinking calmly with this sudden condition, Jell asked what the reason was to involve himself.

Rin answers Jell's question, but it seems she didn't tell him everything and there are still things she covers from them.

The reason was simple, he wanted Jell to follow the contest on his behalf. So if Jell had won the race, Rin would have been King, and of course there would have been a huge reward.

Thinking about it, Jell kept quiet and wanted Rin to explain everything as they looked at the current state of the competition.

***

Walking towards the town square, they decided to take a look at the current state of the competition. In this competition there are values from points that have been collected by the participants on display on the board.

On the board there are many names, but there is only one person who is very striking, it is because he is the one who is in the first number of many participants with many points as much as 20 points.

(20? How many people do not know how much responsibility they will bear if they become Kings?)

Jell muttered in her heart seeing that there were about 20 idiots who had no idea how important this competition was.

The name listed in the first position is a beautiful name, as if it is not from the community, the name is like a noble, Marina Victoria.

“Eh, there was a noble who managed to collect 20 points, yes.”

Mai commented after seeing the calculation results.

“Ara, there seems to be a rat in the city square.”

Jeers rang out, not knowing who but there was someone who had mocked one of them.

That person was from one of the people from the group that led to them, the one mocking them was a woman. She's beautiful, very pretty. Her hair is golden yellow and her eye color is sky blue, if you look at her with a glance she looks similar to Rin. I think it's just my feeling, Jell denied.

“Who are these people? Don't tell me you're gonna involve them? Hahah, you don't give up easily, huh. How many times have you tried but the results will remain the same.”

Needless to say, that the person being ridiculed by this graceful woman was Rin. Rin who got such a word only made a gloomy face and lowered her head.

Mai who saw it seemed annoyed at seeing Rin's miserable condition. He returned the graceful woman's gaze with a sharp gaze, the woman was able to sense it and took a step back.

(What is the relationship between the two?)

Jell was puzzled to see why the graceful woman suddenly mocked Rin who seemed to be doing nothing wrong. It seems like they have a difficult relationship to explain, Jell in his heart.

“Hey, is that how you greet me? You know I'm the next King and not you.”

Rin pressed deeper, she bit her lips and greeted the woman.

“Good day, Onee-sama.”

(TN: Oneesama is a Japanese term that literally translates to “kakak which is respectable” but can be used to refer to girls.)

***