The Mysterious Child: An Adventure Tale Beginning with Numerology

"Fufufu! I am the only one who can kill the immortal! The immortal becomes mortal, and the strongest becomes fragile!"

Stanchik threw dozens of knives into the air and chanted wind magic. The widely spread knives attacked from various directions as if dancing.

Roze repeatedly used teleportation and movement to narrowly avoid them. This demon's magic and attacks themselves weren't particularly strong. However, his negotiation and prediction skills were unusually good, reading Roze's teleportation destinations and timing from her gaze and breathing habits.

And Roze's attack:

"'Flare Purge'!"

"Fufufu! It's useless desu."

As expected, not a single scratch.

"What kind of ridiculous skill is this?"

"You're getting irritated, aren't you? Good desu ne, good desu ne. Actually, I climbed to the top as Skato-sama's greatest masterpiece with just this skill desu."

Roze twisted her body to dodge knives flying from blind spots.

Stanchik was juggling newly produced knives in his hands while manipulating dozens of knives with wind magic. He really was a skillful one.

Roze clicked her tongue and snapped her fingers, shooting down several knives with lightning.

"You're good at struggling in vain desu ne. Now, let's keep going! Hohoino hoi!"

"Ah, you're so annoying! 'Lightning Cloud Summoning'!"

"That again desu ka? You have so few techniques desu ne."

What an annoying guy.

Roze, who had been good at high-powered lightning-based formulas, had never struggled in battles. Thanks to her immortal body, she didn't need countermeasures for battles, so the number of mystic art skills she had acquired was already less than Ruruk's, and she hadn't learned that many magic spells either.

She never thought she would struggle here.

"No use crying over spilt milk. But if I grow here, I'll be like a proper mentor, won't I?"

This lightning cloud was to test something she had just thought of. She didn't intend to cause damage with just this.

Roze dispersed and manipulated the electric charge. Instead of a powerful single strike, she branched the path of the electric shock into countless divisions and made it circuitous. Creating a randomly placed web-like route,

"Take this!"

"Nuu!"

She snapped her fingers and dropped the lightning strike.

Purple electricity coursed through the water field.

This time, instead of a high-voltage single strike, she made the attack repeat multiple times, circling around Stanchik's surroundings. Much of it dispersed into the air, not generating much heat, so no steam rose. Quiet electrical threads ran across the water's surface with a sizzling "jijijiji" sound.

Roze observed Stanchik intently.

Eventually, as all the lightning strikes dispersed and disappeared, Stanchik took a deep breath.

"Buha! Hah... hah..."

"What's wrong? You're out of breath."

As expected, Stanchik was unharmed.

However, for some reason, his breathing was rough.

"Shut up... desu!"

He used wind magic to levitate the knives that had fallen around him and launched them again.

Compared to earlier, it was a monotonous attack. Roze avoided it by kicking off the ground without needing to teleport.

"You fell for it desu! 'Storm Area'!"

"Hmph, that's my line."

The surrounding knives all attacked simultaneously from all directions like a tornado.

However, Roze neither dodged nor defended, instead snapping her fingers to strike Stanchik with a lightning bolt.

It wasn't a mutual strike—or rather, it didn't become one.

The moment Stanchik received Roze's attack unharmed, the attacking knives also passed through Roze's body. This time, not negating Roze's nature of being everything.

Roze smiled as she returned the high potion she had secretly taken out back to her item box.

"Just as I thought. I've figured out your true skill."

Stanchik's skill probably could only hold one judgment at a time. It was certain that he couldn't use it for both attack and defense simultaneously.

Moreover, when using it for defense, his body seemed to take a great toll each time he blocked a continuous attack. This meant he wasn't simply reversing the results. It wasn't a power that governed such conceptual aspects.

Roze said:

"Your 'Incomprehensible Jester,' you said it makes the uncertain certain and the certain uncertain, right? That's a lie, isn't it?"

Roze had misunderstood at first too, but if such a conceptual power were effective, there would be no reason for him to suffer only during defense.

This guy is a jester.

He's probably good at pretending to be both a fool and a sage.

"...What basis do you have for saying that desu ka?"

"It's useless to play dumb. Your unique skill doesn't reverse results. It's a skill that restricts physical changes, isn't it?"

By recognizing Roze as a normal human body and restricting her, he made it possible for knives to stab her. With that ability, if he fixed his own body's state in advance, he could remain unscathed by any attack.

However, fixing the state means stopping the heart and breathing as well.

That's why using it for long periods causes pain.

"You thought you had figured it out, but you were actually being misled. You really are a jester. Well, the way you phrased it gave the impression of invincibility, but it's just an ability that can be interpreted scientifically. Once I understand that, I can think of countless ways to deal with it."

"Enough, be quiet desu!"

Stanchik raised his voice and released all the knives from his pocket, hurling them with a gust of wind.

It was an attack from countless blind spots, but once the trick was revealed, there were ways to defend against it.

"'Ice Room.'"

Roze created a square, transparent ice room surrounding herself.

If the "Incomprehensible Jester" were a concept-level ability that "reversed results," it should have easily pierced through mere ice—but all the knives were deflected and fell.

The jester's façade, unable to break even a simple chunk of ice, began to crumble.

To be honest, if one thought about it calmly, it was obvious from the beginning.

Even though Roze's body could be injured, the "All Things in Creation" itself hadn't been broken.

Roze's immortality skill was "god-realm class." Lower-level skills shouldn't be able to break it.

Although she appeared to be injured on the surface, it was merely "All Things in Creation" recreating convincing wounds to match the opponent's attacks.

In other words, "All Things in Creation" was just accommodating Roze's selfish desire to fight a strong enemy.

Stanchik didn't actually possess a skill that could truly kill Roze. He and Skato might have had a chance of winning, but the difference in level between them and Roze as a throne-level being was too great.

"Damn it!"

"Now, let's bring this to a close. 'Terrain Manifestation.'"

The next field Roze summoned was the crater of a volcano.

They stood on a rock surrounded by boiling magma. For an ordinary person, just standing there would make breathing difficult due to the intense heat, but Roze, of course, maintained a cool expression.

Stanchik, too, had the resilience of a high-ranking demon, so the heat didn't affect him much.

Seeing the ice around Roze starting to melt, he sneered.

"Are you stupid desu ka? The ice barrier is melting desu yo!"

"It's fine. Because this is the end."

This field was the place for the final measure.

Might as well make it flashy, right?

Roze raised her arm to the sky and wove her final formula.

"'Meteor Summoning.'"

At that moment, a huge mass fell from the sky.

A meteorite.

A destructive mass that would cause tremendous damage to the ground if not for the field barrier. It could easily obliterate the rocky footing surrounded by magma.

"No... way..."

Stanchik held his breath as he realized the approaching fate.

Roze smiled and extended her hand to the demonic jester.

"Well then, shall we fall into the lava together?"

"Damn you! You'll go down with me desu!"

"Fufu, just kidding. 'Relative Teleportation.'"

She teleported the lunging Stanchik high into the air, evading him.

The next moment, the meteorite plunged into the crater with a thunderous explosion and shockwave.

Stanchik should be unharmed thanks to his skill. But the rock beneath his feet had crumbled to pieces, and he fell into a lake of magma. The moment he releases his skill will likely be his last.

Watching the jester sink deeper and deeper into the lava, Roze murmured.

"Farewell, Mr. Jester."

It was quite an enjoyable battle.

Finally, she used "Eye of Fiction" to check her answer.

――――――――――

[ "Incomprehensible Jester"

  > Advanced Unique Skill that restricts the target's physical changes.

  >> For others, it can only restrict changes caused by skills or formulas. There are no restrictions for self-use, but since it stops biological activities during restriction, prolonged use is extremely dangerous. The jester's ultimate fate. ]

――――――――――

As expected, she was correct.

But it seemed Stanchik had really been fighting with just this one Unique Skill. Although his level and status were high, this was the only skill he had that could be used in combat.

Roze confirmed that Stanchik's status had changed to [Dead] and then dispelled the "Terrain Manifestation."