Frondier’s unleashed strike.
A sword that manifested as a flash. Simply put, a massive aura shaped like such a blade surged toward Heracles.
Kwaaaang!
As he had declared, Heracles took the blow without moving.
Power so great that an ordinary human could never withstand it. An even more upgraded version than what Heldre or Renzo had taken, now saturated with the peerless mana of Heukcheon.
But this attack was not “Crossfire,” nor Excalibur double-woven after consuming a Dragon Heart, nor the real Mjölnir.
Even so, it was strength that had certainly inflicted damage on Belphegor.
Then how would it fare against Heracles?
Ssshhh—
Dust and mist rose together, blurring the view. ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) It looked like something out of a comic, but Frondier calmed his breath and watched what came next.
When the haze cleared, what he saw was—
“......?”
Telephos entered his sight before Heracles did.
Telephos, who had been watching from the side, had sunk to the ground a short distance away. He looked up at his father, Heracles.
'What’s with that guy.'
Frondier wondered, then decided to ignore it. He looked back to Heracles.
“......As expected.”
Heracles spoke in a voice unchanged from before.
Only, unlike his stalwart body, his clothing had been perfectly ordinary—so the force of the aura had shredded it to ribbons.
“You are strong. It’s a strength I wouldn’t believe of a human.”
Heracles nodded, satisfied.
Frondier studied that body closely.
'......I can’t say he’s completely unscathed, but...'
Heracles had suffered tiny cuts all over. With his clothes blown away, they were even easier to see.
However, those wounds were so minute they were like paper cuts at most. A little blood seeped from the many scratches here and there, but whether they could be called meaningful damage—
At least there was a definite wound dead center on his chest. Enough to call it a sword cut. A small consolation.
'That attack was practically the last line I could use in real combat.'
Frondier hadn’t used his absolute full power partly because he wanted to hide it, but there was another reason.
Even to unleash a strike of this level, he had to pass through three stages: Menosorpo, Weaving, and aura. Even that much required the opponent to show an enormous opening—or be restrained by some other means—or else it wouldn’t land.
If he tried to draw out more power by adding more stages, landing a hit would become extremely difficult.
'Can I make something stronger than this, with a shorter prep at the same time?'
His victory over Belphegor had been luck. No one knew that better than Frondier.
But against Heracles, even if that same measure of luck applied, he still couldn’t win. That was the despair of it.
“An astounding ability and application. You create weapons, then use close-range arms—a sword and hammer—to fire at range. Anyone seeing it for the first time would have no choice but to be caught by it.”
Heracles praised him, but of course Frondier felt bitter.
Because even if they were caught, there was no damage.
“This is my full power. As expected of you, Lord Heracles. I am impressed.”
“Haha, despite your words, your eyes are brimming with resentment.”
Well, of course.
It wasn’t truly his complete full power, but assuming that means nothing. Unless they were as absurdly unhurried as Belphegor, no one would stand there and take it.
'......Come to think of it, Belphegor’s demeanor felt like it went beyond simple “Sloth.”'
Belphegor had watched and waited for Frondier to reveal all his cards. At the time he’d chalked it up to demonic arrogance or the very nature of Sloth, but thinking back now, it was strange.
“Hm. So that was your full power.”
Heracles nodded, then brought a hand to his mouth as if to think for a moment.
Meanwhile, Telephos still hadn’t gotten up from where he’d fallen.
“M-My father’s body... is wounded...”
He just kept muttering something to that effect from a moment ago.
Then Heracles pointed to one of Frondier’s hands.
“But the hammer in that hand—belongs to the gods.”
“......It does.”
“And the right is a human’s, yet seems to surpass most divine weapons. A blade of a hero who defined an era?”
There was no point hiding it now, so Frondier nodded.
Heracles summed it up.
“A hammer of the gods, a hero’s sword, both filled with aura, then infused with otherworldly mana and launched at the foe...”
With a single hit, he’d grasped nearly all the principles behind that power.
Well, most who had felt it either ended up half-crippled or were too busy responding; Heracles was probably the first to think it over so leisurely.
“—Hah-hah.”
And Heracles spoke, amused.
“Your full power is like arithmetic.”
“......Sir?”
Frondier didn’t understand what he meant. Leaving him behind, Heracles turned his gaze to Telephos at his side.
“How long are you going to sit there? Let’s go.”
“F-Father, are you alright?”
“It hurts. I hope you can muster at least this much power someday.”
“.......”
Telephos shut his mouth at that. He glanced briefly at Frondier.
“......Kh!”
Then, biting down for who-knows-what reason, he followed after Heracles, who was already moving.
“L-Lord Heracles! What did you mean by that just now—”
“Nothing at all.”
Heracles didn’t stop walking; he just tossed the words back.
“It’s nothing that needs explaining.”
***
Frondier returned home.
When he stepped inside, Mei, who had been waiting, greeted him.
“Hi, Frondier. How was it? Did you meet Heracles?”
“You heard about it.”
Frondier patted Mei’s head and sat on the couch. Her small body slipped into his arms.
Frondier spoke.
“I met him. Heracles.”
“Was he strong?”
“Ridiculously strong.”
Frondier had felt Heracles’s power.
It was surprising enough that he had taken Frondier’s aura blade—but there was something to note even before that.
Heracles’s fist had reached Frondier’s nose.
That alone was a shock to Frondier.
'His aura, his sixth sense, and Heukcheon—he outpaced the reaction speed of all of them.'
Especially the sight of the fist arriving before Heukcheon could block, and the belated Heukcheon not even touching the fist—that was far too shocking.
As a rule, Frondier didn’t take out weapons first. In other words, until he Wove, he was usually bare-handed. Against an opponent who didn’t know him, the sudden appearance of weapons gave him surprise; against one who did, the uncertainty of what weapon he’d draw was a tactic.
But this method presupposed that Heukcheon would buy him Weaving time. If the speed breaking through Heukcheon’s defense outstripped Frondier’s Weaving, then in that instant, defeat was decided.
'......Until meeting that out-of-bounds existence, Heracles, I hadn’t met a single person like that.'
But from now on he had to keep it in mind. Even if not Heracles, someone else who could do the same might appear. He now had to face gods and demons.
Moreover, even Heracles himself wasn’t someone he could call an ally. He had only secured a promise of non-interference.
And who could know whether that promise would truly be kept?
'Let’s just think of it as Heracles giving me a warning in advance. Whatever the case, I need to find a solution.'
Frondier was stroking Mei’s head, deep in thought, when Mei tilted her face up.
“Is he stronger than Frondier?”
“......Yeah. I’m not even a jjab.”
“What’s a jjab?”
He’d used a strange word. Frondier shook his head.
“No, it’s nothing. Heracles is far stronger than me. So much that I can’t contend with him.”
Saying that, a thought occurred to him and he asked Mei:
“Mei, do you know what arithmetic is?”
“Adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing?”
“Yeah. You know it well.”
Strictly speaking, what she said was the four operations, but there was no need to nitpick.
'......Arithmetic.'
Frondier recalled what Heracles had said.
The fact that such a short line had stuck so hard in his mind meant it had hit a nerve.
'He’s right. I’ve been doing arithmetic to create stronger power.'
That was undeniably a different mindset from the other strong ones around Frondier.
Most people—no, not just people; even gods or demons—couldn’t combine or subtract the powers they possessed the way Frondier did.
Their weapons were limited. The one who held a sword focused all their skill into the sword; a mage focused into magic. And mages usually specialized in one discipline rather than mastering everything broadly.
But Frondier could. He could make weapons, and the weapons he made were powerful without his having to do anything special. If he could just combine them, he could unleash tremendous power.
He had been greatly aided by that power so far—and it had become his combat style—but it was certainly not normal.
This was not a warrior’s way of thinking.
It was—
'A gamer’s mindset.'
Frondier fell silent, staring blankly ahead.
This world he had first encountered as the game Etius. Gamers produced bigger numbers by combining the skills and weapons they had.
They had no interest in how to swing a sword or what process to use a spell. That wasn’t the gamer’s job—that was the character’s job.
The gamer expected that the character would necessarily output that much damage, and built accordingly on that premise.
Frondier was the same. Having played this game more than anyone, he was extremely well-versed on that side of things.
He had been proceeding that way up to now.
'I get what he means...'
A sigh slipped naturally from Frondier’s lips.
'But I don’t know the solution.'
In other words, Frondier had long known his own weakness.
That was why he’d begged countless people for instruction and trained under them to raise his proficiency with all sorts of weapons.
A dabbler could not defeat the pinnacle of a single path. He had already known that.
'Most people, unlike me, had been training in all kinds of ways even before entering Constel. Physical training and swordsmanship; if a mage, the theory and knowledge alongside it; endless cycles of review and preparation, accumulated over a long time.'
If they swung the same sword, it was obvious that the strike of someone with overwhelmingly more experience than Frondier would be stronger.
Then should he, even now, go through the same process as others?
Should he try to catch up to that long accumulation from this point on?
“......The orthodox way is daunting.”
Frondier sensed it instinctively. The way for him to grow stronger than he was now was to keep precisely that orthodox path he had not walked so far. If he spent a very long time, and trained with blood-sweating effort, he might truly acquire power befitting the weapons he held.
But there was no time. That singular, simple fact made his head ache.
Frondier asked Mei:
“Mei, if I trained for, say, ten years, do you think I could get good at one weapon?”
“Why would you need ten years to handle one weapon? You just do it.”
“......Easy for you to say.”
This cheat of a child. Frondier drooped his head.
From Mei’s point of view, Frondier’s situation was probably incomprehensible. She could copy most things quickly.
“And Frondier already handles weapons well.”
“......Me?”
“Yeah. Because you can use Nakjang.”
Atjie’s technique, Nakjang. Mei shook her head.
“I still can’t do that one.”
“.......”
“You can do it with a spear and with a sword, right? Isn’t that amazing?”
“......But that’s just a single technique.”
Even as he spoke, Frondier found it strange.
Right. Why could he use Nakjang? When even Mei couldn’t copy it.
