Half an hour had passed since then.

　Me and Rafe had pretty much cornered the subspecies' guy.

''Ki-kiiiiiii.....

'Huh ... huh ... huh ... huh ...'
"I ain't dead yet, you d*mn scorpion...

　All three have wounds all over their bodies. Their magic power was already running out on each other. The subspecies of the Huge Scorpion, the Huge Scorpion, already had its right scissors cut off, as if it couldn't regenerate. But the only thing missing was that. The only thing that remains is the marks of burns and mutilation all over the body. The blood that poured out of my body shows the harshness of the current battlefield.


　Leif and I have wounds all over our bodies. I'm still reeling from the damage of my earlier attack, and Leif's magic power is being depleted by the flames he fired to protect me. The First Pledge 《Primamateria》 is also in disarray.




　It's probably a final roar. It's probably a sign of his will to kill you guys with this. Without giving me and Leif any time to rest, the subspecies guy is already charging at me.

''With this........I'll end it.

　I stand there dumbfounded as I hold the thin-winged lion low. Leif's guy is dizzy from the depletion of his magic power. You have to be able to get the best out of it. And he's coming at me, too.

　Dodo-dodo-dodo, and he runs across the land. Raising a cloud of dust, he comes for my head.

　I don't move. No, I didn't have to move anymore. In the first place, I don't have that much strength left in me right now. Then there's only one thing I can do.

''Soooooooooooooooooooo, haaaaaaaah.''

　I take a deep breath and prepare myself. This is the end of my life if I fail. Without a doubt, I'll get my head popped off in an instant. No, I'm sure I'll end up being preyed upon alive.


'Ka, ka, ka, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki, ki...!!'


　I take an iaiduki stance while catching the one that comes in front of me. I'm sure you'll be able to find a way to make your life easier. You can't fail. You can't afford to fail, and if you fail, I die and Leif dies.

　I'm not going to be the only one who can do this. Yes, I'm going to further evolve this pygmy dragonfly. I'm not a dragonfly. I'm not sure how much magic I have left. But there is a large amount of the First Pledge, the Primamateria, created by the massive use of alchemy, floating around. If that's the case, then combining a large amount of the First Quality, a little bit of magic, and my clear mental image, I can do it.

　Remember. Back then, when we made the proto and the first ones. All you have to do is trace it back to what we did then. And I want you to remember Leif's magic sword. Combining those two memories together, I was........................ready to go.

''Not yet ... not yet ... come ... come ... more ...''

　This move has an extremely short range. It needs to be sufficiently drawn in for that reason.



　In front of me. I've already stepped into the realm of the dead in less than a second. I'll have to make all the decisions in this world. The Absolute Realm, the Sanctuary, is confined to a radius of a few centimeters. The area just a few centimeters away from my body is all I can react to.

　And the scissors are about to touch my head. Yes, just barely. So close that I can't tell if I'm really touching it or not. From the side, you'd think I was cut off by a subspecies of scissors. But I'm still alive in a world of zero commas.

　And muttering this, I pulled the thin-winged lion out of its sheath.

''........attribute granting [Enchantment]: absolute zero [Absolute Zero].




　The moment I pull out my sword, a pillar of ice runs in front of me as if it were growing vertically. And the subspecies guy who took a decent bite of it emits a strange sound.



　But if you eat this attack from me, it's all over. This technique is an alchemy that is unleashed by using the first quality material in the opponent's body as well as the Primamateria. It is released after filling the surface of the Hatsuhane Dragonfly with the alchemy of Absolute Zero. When the target touched the target, when it touched the alchemy I built into it, it automatically combined with the first pledge and the primamateria to trigger the alchemy.

　This time, I applied the absolute zero to it.

　

　The life activity of the giant scorpion [Huge Scorpion] subspecies ended at this moment.



　I thrust the thin-winged lion into the ground, using it as a wand. You'll be able to see the huge scorpion, which is over 15 meters tall, completely frozen in front of me while I breathe on my shoulder. And two drops of blood flow out of its slightly grazed cheeks.

　It really was a slight difference. It's not surprising that either of them could die. That's how close the fight was to death.

　But I won. I poured all the results of my research to date and won. I was able to fight this far because of Proto, the first one, and my dearest friends.

　I'd like to brag to my parents that even farmers can do it if they do it.

　But now I do. I'm tired and I need a well-deserved rest....

'Errrr!　Ellegh!
'Firstborn!　Sir!

　I can hear Fee and Monica's voices. Probably done over there too.

　Oh, good. I'm so glad.

　And I let go of my consciousness there.


　


Where am I?


　I woke up. But I didn't feel that much time had passed since then. When I checked my body, there was no trauma at all. I checked and looked at it, but I was healthy enough right now to be lacking in magic power.

　Then I looked around and saw that this was the night warfare ward. I was sleeping on the bed, and when I raised my body up, I found Fee and Monica lying there, overlapping each other.

'....Oh?　You're up?
Clarice how's the battle going?
We won. You won. The big one was probably the leader. The moment you defeated him, the other Scorpions lost their will to fight, or were easily destroyed. Perhaps this battle is over.
........right.
We've got a couple of casualties. You know these two did everything in their power to take care of your injuries, right?　You should be grateful.
Yeah well I guess so.

　Then I get out of bed, trying not to wake them up.

'Huh?　Shouldn't you be in bed yet?
''Oh. My body seems to be fine, just lacking in magic power. I'm going to cool off a bit.
Have a good day.

　I walked straight out. I look up at the sky and see the stars shining there. There are no clouds at all. The night sky is endlessly clear. While looking at such scenery, I head to the place where I was alone before my first battle. Then, as I thought........this man was there.

''Leif, are you okay?''
'Oh?　Elle. You're the one who was badly wounded.
'I can manage, thanks to Fee and Monica. You would have lost a lot of your magic power. How does it affect you?
I'll be back after dinner and sleep. I wasn't too badly hurt.
I see.

　I and the others remained silent for a while. Then Leif spoke up first.

'About the labyrinth, tomorrow I will give you all the information I have.
How much do you charge?
We'll call it even on this one. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for you.
Okay. All right, well, we'll talk about it tomorrow.
'Oh...'


　And then I left Rafe's side.

　Thus, my first battle ended in victory.

　But this was only the beginning. I would later learn that this was only the beginning of the world's mutation.