The Hero King, Reincarnate to Master the Art of War ~And Thus, I Became The Strongest Knight Disciple (♀) in The World~-Novel

「「…………」」

There was a slight pause as they looked at each other. The audience was also staring at Inglis and Yua on the stage. Inglis could feel their gazes full of anticipation, expecting to see something extraordinary.

Whatever happened next could be swept under the rug called stage effects, and the gallery was being protected by the barrier Principal Miliera erected using an Artifact too. And so, they didn’t need to worry too much and they could fight with their all. They just had to give the audience a show they anticipated.

「……Not coming?」

「Yes. I’m thinking to be on the receiving end once again.」

Yua’s entrance was extremely difficult to read and react to. Not only did she disappear from sight, but the ripple of mana in the wake of her magical phenomenon was also so abysmally little, making it difficult to detect her both visually and magically.

Inglis managed to react to her by crushing and scattering an ice sword that carried her mana, as well as cutting off her vision and focusing her senses to detect any movements in the ambient mana, but…

This time, she was trying to keep her eyes open. If Inglis’ own sensitivity to mana had improved compared to before, then she should be able to react to Yua. Recently, she had been practicing to grasp and understand the subtle flow of mana in nature along with the movement of Ether that hid deep within it, instead of just taking them as a matter of course.

She couldn’t do it without undoing her favorite training diet that she never failed to do, which was to apply a constant gravity pull to herself.

The reason was that she would be clothed in a massive amount of mana, which would make it difficult for her to perceive the natural mana in her surroundings.

Rafinha suspected that Inglis was in bad health, because to an outside observer, she appeared to be just sitting motionless and meditating. However, this was actually a good opportunity to review her training, most of which tended to be biased towards physically burdening.

This was time to test the result.

「Please, do come and hit me anytime you want.」

「Then…」

Saying so, Yua held up her index finger and her thumb at a 90-degree angle, making the shape of a finger gun.

「Pow!」

「?!」

It was a bullet made of light, very similar to the one that Yua accidentally caused when the Star Princess unit went out of control.

When Inglis received it, she felt a heavy punch accompanied by puffing smoke.

「This is the same attack as before?!」

「Yeah. I memorized how to do it back then.」

It was an accident that just happened one time, and yet she had incorporated it as her own technique. Wonderful. In just a blink of an eye, Yua had gained a new skill and her strength had increased.

BAM!

With an impact on her flank, her body was blown to the side. The wall of the theatre loomed to her in just an instant. She quickly twisted her body around and kicked the wall, avoiding the collision.

「Uwoah?! Did Euthylis just vanish?!」

「Not to mention… such power for someone so slender!」

「But the girl who received it and returned to the stage is just as amazing! What was that movement?!」

Yua’s strength that enabled her to make a person crash into the wall easily, her vanishing movement, in addition to Inglis who regained her stance with inhumane speed even after receiving the hit, with all those things presented to them, the audience let out wild cheers.

「Amazing, you really took me by surprise!」

Inglis couldn’t restrain her smile as she zoomed back to the stage and stood before Yua. Due to the intense movement of mana from that light beam, the small traces of Yua’s movement were wiped off and couldn’t be detected.

It was akin to a huge wave that drowned small waves. Like hiding a tree in a forest.

Inglis couldn’t tell if it was Yua’s intended strategy, but the difficulty of anticipating Yua’s movements based on the movement of ambient mana just reached a higher dimension.

What a truly wonderful senior Inglis had. With this much resistance and the speed of her growth, she’s the best and most talented training partner Inglis could ever ask for.

Unlike Eris and Ripple who were busy with their duties as a Hyrule Menace, Yua was always available at the Knight Academy. The fact that she was fundamentally a listless person was a problem, but with the kissing scene during this play at stake, she should get serious for once.

If possible, Inglis would like to fight Yua as often as possible in the future. She must prepare a variety of ways to get Yua to play with her tune.

「Didn’t work again? I thought I got stronger than before?」

Yua looked at her hand, craning her neck.

「That’s not true. My receiving arm is numb.」

Indeed, the force behind the blow was greater than the one Inglis received before. A tingling pain spread halfway through her body, taking mostly half of her side.

It wasn’t the kind of pain that she should withhold repeatedly, but it was the kind of pain she wanted to receive time and time again. This pain was the pleasantries of a battle. It was rare for her to get this much bite out of someone.

「I see, so you still held back a lot before…」

「No……Not really. I have just been feeling better lately.」

Yua turned her shoulder in a circular motion.

「You’re in your growing period, I see. I think it’s wonderful.」

「That so? Rather than getting stronger in fights, I’d rather have these to be growing instead…」

Saying so, Yua patted her chest that puffed out with the paddings.

「It’s definitely better to get stronger.」

「You said that because yours are already big to begin with.」

「No, that’s not what…」

Well, it was true that Inglis had a nice pair of breasts, and they did look good, even if she said so herself. However, she didn’t take any pleasure in being noticed by men or being popular.

Perhaps because she was a man at heart, but she did feel happy to look at herself in the mirror and appreciate her own looks, not to mention that some clothes looked better with bigger ones.

「The more I lose in the *****, the more I got to win the fight… wanna do the kiss too.」

「Of course, let’s continue then!」

「Yeah. Then, another one…pow!」

「Then, me too!」

Inglis raised her finger, matching the trajectory of Yua’s light beam…

‘Ether Strike!’

The pale blue light of ether emitted by Inglis collided with the light ray emitted by Yua. It hit right in the middle between the two, as the two lights twisted, exploded, and vanished.