Joaki’s Point of View:
“WHAT?” I couldn’t help but shout when one of the guards told me what had happened.
“You should’ve entered the estate and shouted that something bad was happening.” I complain to the guard in front of me, although my complaint is kind of stupid because I probably would’ve been really annoyed if someone had invaded this place like that.
All my companions react differently. Some of them bring their hands to their mouths, others frown, but they all share the same reaction: Worry.
“You all heard him, let’s go right now.” Murill’s shout gets us moving in an instant.
Now that we have Maki’s general location, we decide to get there as quickly as possible. We haven’t changed clothes, nor have we prepared ourselves for what might happen; we just want to help a friend. Two Diamond ranks, that’s no joke, and I don’t know how Maki can handle them.
I remember the little guy… well, not so little anymore, is a special case. No, it doesn’t matter how strong Maki is, there’s no way he can fight two Diamond ranks at the same time. Just enduring their Jurisdictions will force him to spend a huge amount of mana.
We’re all moving at a good pace, much faster than normal; we’re not going at our maximum speed for two reasons. The first is that some of us are faster than others, and there would be no point in some of us arriving first. We’d only get in Maki’s way if we arrived one by one.
The second is that we don’t want to spend all our stamina and mana before getting there, that would also turn us into a burden for our friend.
The entire way, all I can think about is whether Maki is alive or not, and fleeting thoughts cross my mind of arriving there only to find everything already over with a single victor, the little genius capable of making anyone of the same rank feel inadequate.
Maki has surprised me so many times that it wouldn’t be that strange for him to do it again, he always pulls something new out of his sleeve. He has gained a lot of experience facing Diamond-rank opponents, but never two of them at the same time.
Can you pull off another miracle? His smiling face with those bright violet eyes comes to mind and a small smile forms on my lips. Yeah, if there’s anyone capable of doing it, it’s you. There’s no one else in this place capable of doing half the things you do.
We finally arrive at what looks like a battlefield, there are broken trees everywhere, shattered rocks, and enormous holes and trenches all over the place.
“There’s no noise…” Lise is concentrating, trying to sense any kind of mana in the surroundings, and says what no one else wants to say.
If there’s no noise, it means the fight must already be over or they’re very far from where we are. Our companion who serves as a scout doesn’t wait for an answer and disappears without leaving a trace in search of Maki.
His ability is pretty good, he can even go unnoticed by Diamond ranks if they aren’t paying close attention to their surroundings or don’t have some kind of Grade V detection ability. They shouldn’t be able to sense him in the slightest if they’re fighting against Maki.
You’re alive, right? There’s no way you could’ve died, you’re like a cockroach, almost immortal. I force myself to believe that my friend won and that we simply arrived too late to watch him defeat two people a rank above him.
Our scout returns after a minute and his face says it all, there’s no need for us to ask; he couldn’t find anything in the surrounding area. Just before we give the order to split into two groups while keeping a reasonable distance from each other, something echoes through the area.
“What the hell was that?” Murill turns toward the sound of an explosion.
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“I can feel a slight fluctuation in the ambient mana.” Lise’s voice gives us a better picture. The place is pretty far away, it’ll take us a few minutes to reach the site of the explosion. A rising column of smoke can be seen from where we are.
“Let’s go, it must be them.” Everyone nods and we move as fast as we can. That explosion wasn’t normal, if we could hear it from this distance, it must’ve been an extremely powerful and concentrated attack.
When we reach the place, my eyes focus on someone with several wounds across his body, covered in blood and almost unconscious. His body is leaning against a tree, his eyes slowly closing, but a small smile forms when he sees us.
Beside him is a completely dead person, and several meters away I can already see something that might be a mangled corpse, although I’m still wondering whether that’s actually a corpse or something entirely different. For a moment, I doubted it when I saw the condition of what seems to be a human body.
“You look like shit, I’ve never seen you in that condition before.” My voice carries concern and mockery at the same time. I can’t be angry if my friend survived, he really did it, Maki defeated two Diamond ranks by himself.
I’m not lying when I say it’s extremely rare to see him in that condition, usually he can heal himself in the blink of an eye. At first, watching him reconstruct his limbs at record speed was disgusting, but now I’m used to seeing him lose parts of his body.
“I’m not that bad, I can still kick your asses if I manage to get back on my feet.” Hearing his usual sarcastic response makes me realize that my friend is fine.
“What are you guys doing here? Did you come to make sure your ticket to riches is still alive?” Maki speaks again when he doesn’t get a response from us. He’s trying to lighten the mood with jokes.
“If you have that much energy to joke around, start healing yourself and let’s head back. Your grandmother must be worried, and Princess Brendu is probably furious.” Murill tosses him a bottle of water with diluted life mana. It isn’t as effective as a mana potion, but at least it doesn’t have any strange side effects and is much cheaper.
Maki’s body stiffens when he hears the princess’s name, and for a moment I can see a worried expression on his face. “I can’t, I’ll need to rest a little longer and recover enough mana. That mangled bastard blew himself up and his mana wreaked havoc inside my body.” Maki wipes the corners of his mouth after drinking the liquid.
“Since you guys came all this way, serve as my guards for a few minutes while I recover some mana. I’d feel bad if you came here for nothing, at least you can keep me safe.” I roll my eyes after hearing Maki.
“Seriously, guys, thanks for coming to help me. I’m happy you were worried about me.” Maki gives a small bow. “As you can see, beating those two idiots wasn’t easy, especially that guy over there with a bomb complex.” I can see my companions’ smiles growing.
“It’s nothing, we can’t afford to lose the goose that lays the golden eggs, that’s all.” Lise laughs and brings her thumb and index finger together while keeping the other three fingers raised, showing that everything is okay.
We all start laughing and joking around with the young noble, but at the same time, everyone becomes alert to our surroundings; Lise even forms a mana shield around us while making that mocking comment.
About five minutes later, Maki finally tries to stand up. “I’ve rested enough, it’s time to head back.” As he gets to his feet, his body begins healing, all his wounds disappearing at an alarming speed.
I’ll always be amazed by that healing speed. I turn to look at Yuly, she’s mesmerized as if she were staring at her favorite dessert right in front of her. Our healer is always talking about how impressive Maki’s healing ability is.
She has also mentioned how difficult it must have been to obtain it, healer/fighters are extremely rare for many reasons. No one wants to expose people capable of saving the lives of others by sending them to the front lines of a battlefield, and healers usually aren’t built for combat.
Maki is one of those rare exceptions, someone capable of enduring pain to a ridiculous degree while having enough control over his life mana to create intricate mana constructs to heal his own body. Yuly has also said that this kind of speed isn’t normal, she assumes Maki possesses a very powerful Law.
“Now you can add another achievement to your short life, defeating two Diamond ranks while being a Ruby rank.” I wrap my arm around Maki’s shoulders.
“I already told you guys that technically I fought them one at a time for most of the battle, they got overconfident and paid dearly for it.” He repeats the same thing.
“In the end, you still defeated both of them, that’s what matters.” Murill responds. “Do you think they would’ve beaten you if they had fought you together from the beginning?” His question sparks everyone’s curiosity.
Maki looks at the two corpses for a few seconds before answering. “No, I could’ve escaped back to the village if things got complicated… honestly, I don’t see myself losing against those two even in a two-versus-one; I just would’ve ended up in much worse shape.”
We all smile and nod, we believe the same thing after hearing him tell us how the entire fight went.
“Now you only have the hardest part left, calming down someone capable of making Diamond ranks feel small.” Yuly makes her comment while laughing.
“The problems just keep coming.” Maki says it sadly and we all burst out laughing. Good luck, my friend.