บท 22: Battle against an elf

---Chapter 20: Battle against an elf---

...

After Elysia finished preparing herself, the interrogation began.

"First question. Are you really a human?" She asked me with squinted eyes.

What kind of question is that? Is she really that reluctant to lose against a human in the "Connection to nature" thing?

Whatever...

"Yeah, I'm a human"

She just nodded with a grim look on her face while muttering under her breath "... Damn it..."

Heh

"Alright, moving onto the second question, what are your motives for entering our territory human?"

"I entered by accident while I was escaping from a horde of monsters after I failed to reach a nearby village before the night fell. So I don't have any motives to be here except for the fact that I was abducted by the guys behind me"

After the group heard what I said, their eyebrows twitched in annoyance, but they still remained silent.

"Is that all?" She asked me while massaging her chin and looking at me with dubious eyes.

"Yeah... I don't know what more do you expect"

"Well, the border of the human territory is pretty far from here, so even if you entered our borders by accident it doesn't make sense that you walked from such a far away place to this city"

Ah...

"Well... because I didn't have any map of this place I ended up lost. And after picking a random direction I ended up traveling further into the Elf territory by accident..."

...

*Pfft*

...

Did she just laugh at me?!

However, before I could even confirm my suspicions her expression returned to normal.

"Alright, as for the last question... Do you harbor any malicious intention towards us elves?"

"That could depend on your actions, but for now I do not harbor any hostile intention towards you guys nor do I plan to do something bad while being here" I said while eyeing the elves behind me.

After answering the questions The woman named Elysia stayed silent for a while with her eyes closed.

Soon the blue ball of light emerged from my head and flew towards her hand

She positioned her hands around the magic ball and meditated for a few seconds before relaxing her posture and opening her eyes.

"... Sigh... Alright, everything you said was true, so I guess you are free to do anything you want from now on Mr Human"

"My name is Aspen, not human" I said while standing up and stretching my limbs.

"I see, sorry for my lack of manners. My name is Elysia Rossette" She said while bowing lightly

Finally.

I am free to leave this place.

Or that's what I thought...

"Then sir Aspen, could you accept to have a duel with me?" The guy who seemed to be leader of the group of elves said to me while bowing lightly.

Oh no... here comes a battle junkie. The prophecy was true.

"Alyem, was it? I don't see why could you suddenly want to fight me" I said while trying to suppress my annoyed expression.

"I saw you using Nature control magic, and there's also the fact that you have such a big connection to nature, so... I wanted to know how much strength you have..."

How strong I am?

That's right, how strong I am compared to an elf?

I mean my strength already surpassed what was possible for a normal human, but... how far am i from an elf? How strong am I compared to a race that manages to survive easily in this horrible world?

Thinking it like that... maybe a spar wasn't that bad of an idea.

...

"...Sigh... Alright, where will it be anyways?" I said shrugging.

"In the hunter barracks, we have a fighting arena for spars like this" He said while gesturing me to follow him. Meanwhile, the other guys just followed us from behind.

...

It took us a while, but after some minutes we ended up arriving at the arena.

It wasn't that spectacular, instead of what I thought it could be something similar to a coliseum ended up being a small rectangular flat area surrounded by wood fences.

While we entered the arena and prepared ourselves for the spar, some people arrived to see us fight and started cheering for us.

"Come on little human! Do your best!"

"You can do it Mr. human, just try to survive for at least a few seconds!"

"Make it fun, human!"

Alright...

I'm getting quite pissed.

Elysia that came with us along stood up from her seat and explained the rules.

"You can fight using any weapon of your preferences, magic, or even use your bare fists if you want. The spar will end when one of you surrenders or passes out. That's all"

I took out my Deadly wooden sword and took my stance. Since this was just a spar then there was no need of using my silver sword.

He instead just took a normal bow and then proceeded to take his stance

I glanced into his eyes and his HP was displayed to me.

°°°

Elf archer [Alyem Ventus]

[HP: 250/250]

°°°

Even elves have more Hp than me...

Sigh... whatever.

...

"Begin!"

The moment she said that, Alyem began moving at an incredible speed around me. Probably trying to confuse me or to scare me in front of such speed.

However, my eyes could still follow him at this speed, so I tried stabbing him while he was running.

*FWISH!*

My attack was dodged without much effort and Alyem jumped high on the sky while doing a spin.

Show off...

He once again took his battle stance and prepared to attack.

However, after seeing me adapting easily against his speed he stopped his strategy of confusing me while running around, and instead he took several steps back and began shooting arrows at me at full speed.

I managed to block some arrows that could have immobilized me, however, I was not able to block the other ones that pierced my invisible silver armor like they it was butter.

[You have received 32 damage]

"Urgh!" I grunted in pain after having some arrows pierce my skin, however, I immediately took them out of my body before we engaged against each other again.

He seemed a bit surprised after seeing me take out his arrows out of my body like nothing. However, he soon started firing arrows at me once again.

I managed to block these with my sword, however, It was starting to get harder to block them as his speed seemed to be increasing each time he did that.

Hehe... It seemed that it will be a bit hard for me to fight like this.

"Fuuu..."

I immediately closed my eyes and concentrated my mind at its maximum.

*Badump*

The blood flowing out of my wounds, the sound my bones did when moving, and the sound of my heart beating hard. I could feel it all.

Time slowed, and so did him.

After seeing me close my eyes he tried to shot more arrows at me, however, I dodged them effortlessly.

While he started grabbing new arrows to shoot I jumped at him and started swinging my sword in his direction. Each of my attacks filled with energy and concentration.

Although he seemed a bit surprised at my abilities, he still could react to my speed easily. So he started dodging each one of my attacks easily, It was until he discovered an opportunity to counter-attack in one of my swings that he kicked me with full strength on my abdomen.

Or at least he tried.

I twisted my body to its limit and dodged it by millimeters. While his face had a bit of surprise after seeing me do that, it didn't stop him for trying to escape from my range of attack

However, before he could escape I launched my fist against his face.

When he caught a glance of my fist going straight at his face, he smiled a bit before ignoring it completely.

He probably thought that with my human strength, it couldn't deal that much damage.

However, That was an error.

Because the moment my fist connected, his face twisted against it, and he was sent flying.

[You have dealt 18 damage]

"What kind of strength is that? That's not the strength of a human!" He said while he was still flying through the air and his cheek still had a mark of my fist in it.

*Thuth*

After he fell to the ground some meters far away from me, I activated my Nature control magic and used some deep underground roots from a tree to surround his body and tie him up.

He tried to escape from it. However, he soon saw himself completely tied up by the roots.

I approached him and pointed my sword against his throat.

*Ptuh*

I spat the blood inside my mouth to the ground and grinned at him.

"Seems like I won right?"

"Heh, yeah" he said while sighing at his own defeat. "I surrender!"