A few days later, Kasumi walked over to where the sword was with a familiar air.
Which was no surprise, as by now Kasumi had challenged the sword over 50 times.
“…Alright, here we go.”
Kasumi walked down the steps and opened the door to meet the sword once again.
“…”
Kasumi slowly unsheathed her blade. She reminded herself of what her next move would be, as she blocked the sword that came flying towards her.
The sounds of clashing metal rang in the dark room.
A HP bar hovered above the sword, and Kasumi paid attention to it as they fought.
“‘Leap’!”
Once the sword’s HP bar had diminished a little, Kasumi leaped forward.
In the next instant, the spot where Kasumi had been a second ago was pierced by numerous swords.
In other words, this sword would do specific actions once its HP reached a certain point.
And after witnessing it many times, it became easy for her to avoid them.
“‘First of the Blades. Kagerou’!”
She closed in again after having moved back. Kasumi slashed at the sword and then took one step to the right. This was because she knew that a sword would shoot out of the ground.
While fighting the sword, she circled it, slowly taking one step at a time.
As she moved, swords would thrust out from the ground where she had been, with only a second’s delay.
It would be fatal if she stopped for a second. Furthermore, the swords that sprouted from the ground would not disappear unless certain conditions were met, so she had to think about where she moved.
It had taken a long time for Kasumi to figure out how to move in this fight.
By the time she had made a full circle around it, the HP bar of the sword had dropped to the next level, and it moved to the next phase of the fight.
The swords in the ground disappeared, and now there was purple fire raining from the ceiling instead.
If Kasumi got hit by it, her AGI would become 0 for 10 seconds.
And the sword itself had now switched to flying at an incredible speed, which made it clear that having reduced AGI would make it impossible to dodge its attacks.
The part that had frustrated Kasumi the most until now, was this fire rain.
No matter what, she could not dodge it completely until the sword moved to the next phase.
And so Kasumi reexamined the skills she had and tried to think of a way to get through this part.
“‘Last of the Blades. Oborozuki.’”
Her conclusion was that she had to kill before she was killed.
12 high-speed successive attacks hammered at the sword with ferocity.
It’s HP bar was dropping at a shocking rate, but still, Kasumi showed no pleasure on her face.
Those 12 attacks allowed her to skip 3 phases and jump straight to the final one.
The sword’s HP bars was at one millimeter now, but that was inevitable.
No matter how much HP you took, it would always have just a little remaining.
Kasumi’s trump card was Oborozuki, but it also halved her stats for a fixed period and made her other ‘Blade’ skills unusable.
And she had to enter the final phase in that situation.
Kasumi had not been able to pass this phase and had died dozens of times.
“…”
The sword teleported to the back of the room. Its body was now shining brighter than before.
A wall of fire stretched up to the ceiling as if surrounding her. The walls of fire created a straight path towards the sword.
It was 10 meters long. And 3 meters wide.
Kasumi would have to run through here and strike the final blow.
“Hah!”
She let out a short breath and ran on her now slower feet.
Not only were numerous swords flying towards her from the front, but the walls of fire were spouting flames from both directions.
If she stopped for even a second, swords would shoot from the ceiling.
The 10 meters looked short but seemed so long.
“Hahh!”
She blocked the flying blade with her sword, barely dodged others, and continued forward.
She had to dodge the fire no matter what, as it would take her AGI. She also had to avoid the swords from the ground, but the flying swords were a different matter.
As long as she had not been hit until this point, she could survive three hits now.
Kasumi was now halfway across, and she understood it through all of her senses.
“‘Super Acceleration’!”
She had been saving ‘Super Acceleration’ until now, and she used it here to try and get through this area where the attacks came harder.
Yesterday, Kasumi had taken a break from fighting it, and she had asked Sally and Shin to help her improve her skill in dodging flying swords.
Perhaps that had proved effective because she could now see the course of the swords more clearly.
Still, as she was much closer now, she did not have enough time to deal with them, and so she was hit.
“Go…!”
She felt the shock through her whole body as her left shoulder, stomach and left thigh was pierced.
The painful-looking red effect resembled fresh blood as it splashed.
But Kasumi did not stop.
She thrust out her right hand. The sword that she gripped touched the sword that was floating.
In the same instant, the floating sword lost its brilliance, and it quietly fell to the floor. Then it slid into a sheath that had materialized.
The fire and blades in her body now disappeared. The room returned to its usual darkness.
“…”
Kasumi reached out a hand to the fallen sword and picked it up.
“Hehe… Hahaha! I did it! I did it! I finally did it!”
She could not hold back from expressing her happiness as she inspected the item.
‘Self-devouring Bewitched Sword. Yukari.’
STR+ 30
Bewitched Sword
Self-repair
Bewitched Sword
Includes 5 skills that can be used at the cost of HP reduction, MP reduction, Temporary Status reduction, Constant Status reduction, and Physical restrictions respectively.
Self-repair
Its durability will recover when it’s sheathed.
“I guess I’ll try it out. Now, to go find some easy monsters to kill!”
Kasumi equipped the sword and left the room to go and search for some monsters to test her new sword on.
After walking for a while, she found an easy monster.
“Good, good. I think this one had a lot of HP.”
As Kasumi pulled the sword out of the sheath, a purple smoke rose into the air.
“Oh…? Hmm?”
The smoke quickly drifted off with the wind, but Kasumi saw that something was clearly different.
It was her own clothes.
Below, she was in a traditional dark purple skirt, and above her chest and arms were bound in a light purple cloth. The bindings around her arms and the sword were letting off a purple smoke.
“…”
Kasumi quietly returned the sword to its sheath.
And then the purple smoke was sucked in, and her clothes returned to normal.
“I, I guess I’ll get used to it? But still…”
She couldn’t just ignore something this advanced.
Kasumi coughed and with slightly flushed cheeks, unsheathed the sword once again.
Kasumi decided to use the skill that cost you physical restrictions, as she was the least sure what that meant.
“‘Purple Phantom Blade’!”
With the help of the skill, Kasumi moved towards the monster at an accelerated speed.
Then she cut with the sword in her right hand.
She let go of the sword with her right hand, and it disappeared and reappeared in her left.
Then she gripped the sword and slashed again before it vanished and materialized in the other hand once again.
Starting from the right hand, she attacked from both sides. The monster was thrown back as she charged at it with 10 successive blows.
Finally, she let go of the blade and brought her hands together in front of her chest.
And threw 10 swords out.
The blades surrounded the monster in the air and stabbed into it all at once.
It was 20 attacks in all. A monster that merely had high HP could not survive it.
When the skill was finished, the blade returned to Kasumi’s right hand.
“Good…yes.”
It would be perfect if it weren’t for the clothes. Kasumi thought as the purple smoke surrounded her again.
“Huh…oh, it’s gone now. I dropped the sword…?”
She reached out to pick it up, but then she noticed that her hand looked terribly small.
“Hmm…?”
Her skirt was kept up through system restrictions, but her bindings around her arms and chest were becoming loose. She was now only 120 cm tall.
“What…oh, what?”
She tried picking up the sword, but she couldn’t handle it with just one hand.
She knew that it would be hard to swing even if she used both hands.
“This…”
As Kasumi tried to understand what was happening, a different monster came near her.
And the monster was not sensitive to her plight.
“Oh…! Hey, hey, wait! Look how cute I am! I think, anyway! Let me go! Ahh…ggg…”
Of course, it was not effective, and Kasumi was sent back to the town.
When she returned, her bindings were tightened again, but her body was still small.
Kasumi checked her status.
“10 minutes like this…”
She gave up and walked over to a step as she dragged her skirt. And there she sat quietly, eyes shut and ignoring the looks she was getting.