Bell Cranel thought.
It had been the day after the War Game ended, right before they were about to head down into the Dungeon.
"Remember this, Bell."
Your [Hollowfication] is only barely in a stable state now. It is absolutely not fully stabilized yet.
"So unless it's an emergency and you only need to use it once or twice, don't overdo it thoughtlessly."
The Magus had said that and repeatedly warned Bell to be careful.
So Bell had asked him.
"Then how long can I keep it up at once?"
To which the Magus answered,
"Let's see? To be safe, maybe one or two minutes, give or take?"
Well, unless you're one of those fully polished veteran adventurers at the level of the Sword Princess or the Hero, that should be more than enough.
And those words were now proving their worth here.
Not in Orario or the Dungeon, but here in Melren.
Boom!
"Y-you...! You rat-like bastard!"
BOOOOM!
Dust and dirt billowed up in all directions from the force of the impact.
Fragments burst and flew apart within it.
And slipping through the gaps as if seeping in between them was a single black dagger.
Swoosh! Clang!
"Ghk! Where are you?! Where the hell did you hide this time, Little Rookieeeee!"
Phryne Jamil roared in fury as Bell Cranel's rush attacks struck and gnawed at her body again and again without pause.
But no answer she wanted ever came back to her.
What Bell gave her instead was only a slight wound.
Shhk!
"Gah...! I-I-I-I-I-I!"
A red line of blood ran down her cheek.
Phryne's anger surged all the way to the top of her head, and she ground her teeth in rage.
At first, she had dismissed the boy in front of her as nothing special.
She had thought he was just some pretty-faced brat acting out without knowing his place, and she had happily indulged in fantasies of the pleasure to come.
That filthy arrogance and carelessness of hers shattered right after that.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! KANG! Clang! Screeeech!
"Y-you little...! GYAAAAAAH!"
Fast.
No, he had been fast.
And then he became even faster.
It was already a speed and ferocity far beyond what Phryne's crude axe swings could ever hope to keep up with.
"Y-you damn brattttttt!"
Crash!
Desperate to turn the situation around, she swung her axe.
She smashed the ground and turned the surrounding area into a complete wasteland.
Just one hit.
If she could land even a single blow.
If that happened, the story would surely change.
But unfortunately, and naturally.
Swoosh! Clang!
"Aaagh...! GAAAAAH!"
Her axe never once touched Bell's speeding legs.
What it always met was only the black fangs of the small, pure-white rabbit named Bell Cranel.
The sluggish tongue of that disgusting toad had no chance against the rabbit's nimble footwork.
If only she had been the sturdy turtle from a story, she could have hidden inside her shell and waited for a chance to counterattack.
But with the armor she wore now, that was impossible.
In fact, under Bell's relentless assault, her armor had already been chipped away and worn down until it was little more than rags.
It was so battered that it looked like it would soon be shattered to pieces and lose all function.
"Bell..."
"T-that's the Little Rookie?"
"No way. Phryne's trash as a person, but she's still a first-class adventurer!"
"B-but there's no way he should be able to..."
"That's Level 3? What nonsense."
Ais, and everyone else around them, had stopped their own fighting and were now staring at the battle between the two—or rather, at the one-sided beating Phryne was taking—with utter disbelief.
That was how impossible the sight before them was, something they could not believe even while seeing it with their own eyes.
It was the same kind of impossible story as a second-class adventurer overwhelming a first-class adventurer.
And yet that reality was unfolding right before them now.
How was anyone supposed to explain or accept that?
"I feel light. Like I could fly off at any moment."
Meanwhile, Bell himself was also deeply astonished by the changes in his own body.
During the War Game, the situation had left him with no room to properly feel it, but now he could look at himself from a more objective standpoint.
And what he saw before him was a whole new world.
"Was this how Ais and the others always felt?"
He couldn't say for sure.
But it probably wasn't all that different.
The Sword Princess's wind, as he remembered it, had been even faster and sharper than this.
Whoosh! Crash!
"Hup!"
While he was lost in thought for a moment, Phryne's savage axe once again swept past his side and smashed the ground.
If not for his speed having increased, he would have been done for long ago.
"Be careful. Stay sharp, Bell Cranel!"
Back when the Magus had explained it to him, he had said this.
Bell Cranel's [Hollowfication] was by no means something as simple as a raw boost in strength.
Of course, because it forcibly drew out the hidden potential within him, there was definitely some increase in physical specs.
But at most, that was only a tiny gain of around 2 to 5 percent.
At first, the Magus had judged that if he tried to spread the enhancement evenly across everything, the boy's low level would mean [Hollowfication] would not be very effective at all.
So he decided it would be far more advantageous to concentrate most of the stat increase into a single strength.
Accordingly, the most important point in Bell's adjusted [Hollowfication] was none other than speed.
In short, what it amounted to was simply becoming faster, like now.
And using that faster body properly and precisely was entirely up to Bell's own accumulated skill and natural instinct.
So the moment he grew arrogant and let his guard down.
It would be Bell himself who got caught off guard and taken down.
"About thirty seconds left."
Above all, Bell's [Hollowfication] was still immature.
When he had tested it in the Dungeon, the maximum duration had been only one minute and thirty seconds.
Overwhelming a first-class adventurer for a full minute was already an earth-shattering feat, but in the end, that was all it was.
Just that much was not enough.
Being stronger alone would not do.
What he needed now was a decisive blow to settle the match.
Only that single strike.
And fortunately, Bell already had one such weapon.
"[Firebolt]."
He quietly uttered the short incantation.
Then he formed the image in his mind.
"Like fitting together broken pieces."
Clack, click!
Three powers, each different in essence yet interlocking at their seams, connected with one another.
The goddess's blessing—the dagger—accepted the boy's flame.
And the flame, embraced within that gracious vessel, became one with it for a brief moment.
Soon, a single clear bell rang out, blessing the bond between the two.
Ding...!
Clear white flames overlaid and settled vividly upon the Hestia Knife.
Thus it was named: [Argo Vesta].
As the name implied, it was the very embodiment of the "sacred flame of the hero."
"W-what the hell is that?!"
"Phryne, was it?"
Sorry, but I'm running out of time.
"I'll end this now."
"Y-you insolent brattttttt!"
Facing Phryne, who seemed to have sensed something ominous and was sweating coldly with tension, Bell Cranel quietly declared it.
At that, Phryne's rage exploded to the point it seemed to burst out of her head.
But.
Fsh!
"Huh?"
One step ahead of her.
Faster than ever before.
"Hoo."
By then, Bell Cranel's figure was already long behind her back.
No one here.
Not even Phryne herself, the one who had been struck, realized it in time; she had gone blank for a moment.
Only the Sword Princess, Ais, had been able to confirm and follow that speed.
"It's over."
So he really won.
At her murmur, the others who hadn't seen it were just about to wonder what she meant when—
"Ki...!"
Whoosh!
"KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAH!"
Too late, Phryne Jamil's body and armor burst into white flames.
As Ais had said, the result had already been decided long ago.
"He really won, Bell."
Watching the boy remove his mask with a deep breath after confirming victory, Ais could not hide her admiration.
How had that weak boy from back then grown this much, this quickly?
"Maybe it's because of the Magus?"
She didn't know.
There was still far more she didn't know about that person called the Magus.
So for now, she would leave the unknown alone.
For now, she would simply think about the growth and victory of the admirable boy before her.
A smile of joy naturally appeared on her lips.
But only for a moment.
"Lefiya! Open your eyes!"
"Ah!"
She had been so distracted by the unbelievable sight that she had forgotten.
Lefiya was in danger.
Only after hearing her companion's desperate cry did Ais realize it, and she hurriedly moved—then suddenly felt a strange sense of wrongness.
"My body...?"
It had returned to normal.
Her "wind" had also come back and was blowing once more.
"So the curse has been lifted."
Relieved that the effect had worn off sooner than expected, she quickly ran to her companions.
All the while, she failed to notice a small shadow slipping away beside her, dissolving into another shadow.
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