Chapter 84 - I’m broke. That's why I don't have any

Blood spurted out of the Magic Beast's throat that tried giving the last struggle before collapsing. Esdea dodged a claw and shot herself into the air by making an ice pillar below herself and dodged an incoming attack.

Another Magic Beast roared after having bashed into the ice pillar— but its roar abruptly ended as something just went through from the top of its head. Following the thing in question, looking up where Esdea jumped, she was holding her frozen rapier that had extended and penetrated completely through its skull and exiting from the bottom.

Retracting her sword, she readied herself to deal with the remaining opponent that was waiting for her to fall down in its mouth.

Snorting, she made an enormous ice ball before dropping it on its head.

It all happened very quickly and swiftly as she wanted to show off a little. She landed on a piece of ice. "This isn't even enough for a warm-up." Said Esdea a little dissatisfied as she watched the Magic Beast struggling with getting up. It didn't get crushed from Esdea's attack— but was badly hurt and dizzy.

Esdea didn't wait. She pointed her rapier at it and mumbled something. The rapier once again extended and accurately went through its head too- this time through its eye and out of the other.

"That's good and all. But do you really have to jinx it again? I have enough bad luck as it is— at least concerning money. Do you see these empty pockets?" Esdea heard a voice say.

Knowing full well who was complaining— she nitpicked at his complaint. "But you don't have any pockets."

Looking at his shorts, Marc noticed his lack of pockets and quickly searched for a follow-up to hide his mistake"…Yes, that's the point. Why would I have money when I'm dirt poor?"

"But you have a good perception. I only felt them approaching now." The reason Marc said she jinxed it again was that he felt even more Behemoth-looking beasts approaching before she could. It kinda made her annoyed, and for the first time in a while, she wanted to madly improve herself. She didn't know Marc was using [Panthera Disaster] to make his perception better than hers when she was fused with her Spirit.

"You three. Attack!" In annoyance, she ordered her subordinates to fight the incoming Magic Beasts as she was already bored of fighting them.

"Weren't you in need of money? You might not know, those spider's fangs can be sold for a lot." She asked, smiling, despite having already realized Marc hated them.

"…How much are we talking about?"

"If you sell fangs from a male and female spider together— around 500.000.000 Jewels (5.000.000 USD)" Revealed Esdea playfully with a smile and a finger on her lips— she was really looking forward to seeing him force himself to fight the spiders. But something happened that ruined her mood.

"Forget the spiders! I'm fighting them." Marc was very ecstatic when multiple new gorgeous creatures materialized from the snow. Ecstatic because they looked similar to a winged creature told in legends from his previous life— Harpies. A creature that would be mistaken for a human if it wasn't for the sharp teeth and berserk-like eyes coupled with their limbs similar to birds. Wings as arms, talons instead of feet. What made them stand out from Marc's knowledge was that they were made out of snow entirely. Nix Harpies is what they are called and is very famous for having similar abilities as Phoenixes'.

With their appearance, a blizzard started. Snow fell from the sky, making it hard for everybody to see.

A Nix Harpy suddenly appeared in front of Marc with its mouth wide open— about to bite down on his shoulder. It didn't take him by surprise as he could still feel it despite the blizzard, but before he could even touch the Nix Harpy with an already transformed paw, its head was sliced off its body. Esdea was fuming with anger after having spotted where Marc wanted to place his hand— on its snowballs.

There's no way she would let Marc touch other women, not even part humanoid Magic Beasts. The sliced-off head disintegrated into snow together with the body shortly after.

Feeling a little depressed from the interference, and sensing the Nix Harpy disappear from his perception, Marc got ready to defend against the next one. But from behind him, the snow moved fast over him and materialized into the same Nix Harpy he had died— but looked more intimidating than before with its jaws opening wider than humanly possible.

Marc was unaware of its abilities, but Esdea knew and had already moved behind it, touching its wings with her hand.

In an instant, the snow it was using to solidify its body, turned into ice or rock hard solid snow. Being in this state for long would already kill it, but Esdea was in a bad mood so she ruthlessly finished it off by destroying it with a kick using her heel.

"Is it dead now?" Asked Marc undisturbed by the threatening glare Esdea was giving him. Though he was standing vigilantly with his guard raised if by chance it decided to form again.

Esdea really wanted to teach him how he should behave, but it wasn't the time to give him an earful yet and turn fully yandere mode. "Yes. Nix Harpies can make blizzards and materialize wherever there's snow. Stopping the blizzard and removing all snow near them will make them vulnerable. Tiring them out first also makes them killable— or you can simply obliterate them in one shot like me." She explained, expecting Marc's normal attacks to be useless against the intangible creatures.

When another tried to attack Marc, Esdea let it to see what he would do— but when Marc just touched the Nix Harpy and it was sent flying backward while crying out in pain, she was surprised.

The person himself wasn't surprised as his Paw Magic is supposed to be able to repel anything. "That's just like a Phoenix!" Marc exclaimed after hearing her explanation.

"No, they are different. Nix Harpies are dependent on the blizzard and the snow around to uphold their intangible state whereas Phoenixes are simply intangible as long as they have enough Magic Power."

Most people would have trouble dealing with them, but Esdea and Marc were terrible opponents to fight for them. They weren't enough for them to be serious, so Marc just slapped the air sending a big bubble-formed shockwave through a Nix Harpy. He experimented with [Pressure Cannon], wondering if he could control when the bubble should go through the target. That would remove the weakness of friendly fire and let him do more with the spell.

Though he was looking to be fully focused on the fight in front of him, he was keeping an eye on the huge disgusting spiders that hadn't moved in the trees.

While doing the same thing, Esdea was now sure that they were dealing with an opponent with high intelligence as the attacks from the Magic Beasts were highly organized— like they were being ordered.

…

A little distance away from Marc and Esdea were her subordinates fighting the Behemoth-looking Magic Beasts with everything they got. As they were a lot weaker than Esdea, they had it a lot harder against them. They didn't spare any Magic Power against their opponents as Esdea and Marc did. That was also the reason why they failed to realize the thin layer of frost beginning to appear on their bodies as it didn't even have the cold feeling to it— though they did feel their Magic Power freeze, giving them the feeling of soon being unable to use magic.

Unknown to the three, everything was nearly going according to the spectating being that stood on a raised ice platform behind all the trees.

…

Back to Marc and Esdea.

After having a good training dummy, he had finally succeeded in controlling when [Pressure Shot] should and shouldn't hit the closest Nix Harpy— making him able to choose if the attack should hit the 1st target or go through and only leave internal damage. Instead, it would continue to hit the 2nd and so on depending on how much power he adds to it.

When [Pressure Shot] hit one, its body made of snow exploded to pieces, sending head, wings, and talons flying. When they hit the ground, the body parts deformed and formed a completely new body again at another place.

Two Nix Harpies formed from both Esdea's sides at the same time, biting and slashing with their talons.

She seemingly disregarded the one who wanted to bite, and parried the talons with her rapier before touching it with her hands, freezing it. On her shoulder, the head of the contracted Spirit she was wearing in her transformed state, opened its mouth and let out cold air in the face of the Nix Harpy that wanted to bite her. It quickly solidified and continued to fall into the shoulder guard before falling to pieces at the impact. Left with a sculpture, she looked at its chest and scuffed in disdain while thinking with a very dark face "I'm not afraid of competition, but I will destroy anyone who wants to compete for Marc— be it human or…" without thinking further, she shattered the statue.

***

(A/N: Does the thing about the Harpies and Phoenixes abilities being similar— yet different make sense?)

(A/N: Can you imagine it? Esdea going full yandere mode when she discovers what Marc is doing… Oh boy!"

(Words: 1610)