"This is the perfect opportunity."
Yuuki watched the scene before him, his gaze deep and contemplative.
He had no desire to clash head-on with Yuno, he was a friend, yet the four-leaf clover's Wind Magic was a power he very much wanted to obtain.
Fire, wind, water, and earth—the four great elements were the most fundamental attributes in the Clover Kingdom, the very bedrock upon which all magic was built.
If he was going to collect the four foundational elemental magics, then naturally, Yuuki intended to choose the strongest representatives of each.
Among them, Wind Magic's standard-bearer was Yuno.
Fire Magic was represented by the elf Fana's flame magic and Fuegoleon Vermillion's flames.
Water Magic belonged to Noelle Silva.
As for earth—oddly enough, no truly outstanding earth-attribute mage had appeared in the story thus far.
Inside the grand hall—
Three chefs who had been hiding in the rear finally saw the enemy defeated. The head chef, standing at the front, was beside himself with excitement.
"Well?! Didn't my soul food boost that little one's magic power?!"
He spoke animatedly, firmly convinced that the intruder had been defeated so easily thanks to his cooking.
"That's amazing!"
"Chef, I'll follow you for the rest of my life!"
The two apprentice chefs chimed in excitedly.
Hearing the commotion behind her, Charmy let out a breath of relief. The food—and the three chefs—were safe.
Then—
She noticed Yuno lying unconscious atop a fluffy cotton mass nearby, and a bright smile bloomed across her face.
"The prince who saved my food's life~"
Just as Charmy thought she could finally sit down and enjoy a meal, a spatial gateway suddenly opened above her head and dropped straight down, attempting to swallow her whole.
"Ah!"
Charmy cried out, but her movements were anything but slow. She crouched instantly, then rolled aside, narrowly dodging the falling spatial portal.
However—
While Charmy herself escaped, the massive platter of food she had been holding was swallowed whole by the spatial gateway, vanishing without a trace.
When she climbed back to her feet and saw her now-empty hands, she fell into a brief, stunned silence.
"…My food."
The next instant, rage flared across Charmy's face.
"My foooooood!!"
She shouted furiously as an overwhelming surge of magic erupted from her body, blasting outward in a powerful shockwave.
The three chefs who had been cheering moments earlier immediately clamped their mouths shut, looking around in fear.
That reaction meant only one thing—
There was still an enemy here.
The three hurriedly shrank back into a corner, doing their best to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible.
At the same time—
A quiet sigh drifted in from the gaping hole in the shattered wall.
The empty opening suddenly filled with a figure clad in a black robe, wearing a mask. Everyone in the hall instinctively turned to look.
Yuuki stood at the breach, gazing at the furious Charmy as he removed his invisibility cloak.
Within the Black Bulls, Charmy was known as the squad's cook. Like Finral, she appeared to be a rear-line support member.
But in truth, the two were worlds apart.
Finral could be dealt with even without magic.
Charmy, on the other hand—absolutely could not.
Yuuki had no intention of damaging his invisibility cloak in battle, so he chose to reveal himself outright.
"You were the one who teleported my food away!"
Charmy glared at Yuuki, her voice seething with anger as the violent mana around her surged even more intensely.
"If you'd been teleported along with it," Yuuki said with a quiet sigh, "this would've been much less troublesome."
He didn't want to waste time here. A far more important spectacle was about to unfold elsewhere.
Rades's corpses had nearly all been dealt with. If too much noise was made here, Yuuki had no desire to end up surrounded by Magic Knights.
"No one touches my food!"
Charmy didn't understand what Yuuki was talking about—and she didn't care.
All she wanted was to send him flying.
"Cotton Creation Magic — Sleeping Sheep's Strike!"
BOOM—!
A gigantic, upright sheep—seven to eight meters tall—appeared behind Charmy. Its enormous fist, nearly the size of a person, slammed forward with terrifying force toward Yuuki.
Despite its fluffy, soft appearance, the punch carried an oppressive power that made the air itself tremble.
Yuuki remained calm.
A small spatial gateway opened beside his left hand. He reached into it—
And in the next instant, the Demon-Destroyer Sword was firmly in his grasp.
"I don't have time to waste here."
Yuuki poured his mana into the blade. The grooves along the sword lit up with a pale silver glow.
He intended to end this quickly.
"Slash."
Yuuki swung the Demon-Destroyer Sword forward.
A silver arc of energy burst from the blade, colliding head-on with the incoming sheep's fist.
Riiip—!
The overwhelmingly imposing punch was cleaved apart the instant it met the slash.
The attack continued forward without losing momentum, slicing through the gigantic sheep's body as though it were made of paper—splitting it cleanly in two.
"So strong…!"
Charmy's pupils shrank as she instinctively took a step back.
Yuuki gave her no time to recover.
He surged forward—but before he could reach her, a massive shadow fell over him once more.
His eyebrow twitched.
The sheep he had bisected hadn't vanished.
Its remaining half swung its other fist, smashing toward Yuuki again.
Seeing this, Yuuki couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
As expected—there was still a gap between magic-breaking and true anti-magic. If Asta had used anti-magic for that strike, a spell of this level would have been completely dispersed.
That said—
It was a minor issue.
Yuuki didn't slow down. The grooves of the Demon-Destroyer Sword flared once more.
"Continuous Slash."
Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!
Wave after wave of slashes shot forth, effortlessly shredding the incoming fist—and pulverizing what remained of the massive sheep's body into fragments.
"Cotton Magic—!"
Seeing even her strongest spell overwhelmed, panic finally surfaced on Charmy's face. Large quantities of soft, cottony matter surged from her hands, wrapping tightly around her body.
Under this spell, Charmy rapidly shrank in size and floated upward.
But in the next instant—
A slash from the Demon-Destroyer Sword tore straight through the cotton layer, exposing Charmy inside.
With her magic disrupted, her body returned to normal size, and she fell helplessly from the air.
Her most precious food had been stolen, and now she faced a mage of terrifying strength.
For the first time ever, Charmy felt crushing pressure—
And alongside it, a blazing fury that seemed ready to burst from deep within her.
"I'm really… angry now!"
She scrambled to her feet, her face dark with rage. The surging mana around her began to change, growing strangely distorted.
However—
Yuuki was faster.
That brief moment was all he needed.
He was already in front of her.
With a flick of his wrist, he reversed the Demon-Destroyer Sword, turning the blade outward and the flat of the sword inward—
And smacked Charmy's grimoire cleanly away.
The sword's magic-breaking property severed the connection between Charmy and her grimoire for an instant.
The strange power that had begun to stir within her abruptly stalled, as if something had jammed mid-activation.
In that fleeting opening—
Yuuki raised his free hand and swept it forward.
A black spatial gateway opened, swallowing Charmy whole and vanishing in an instant.
"Whew…"
Watching as Charmy was teleported dozens of kilometers away from the capital, Yuuki finally let out a long breath.
From start to finish, the battle hadn't even lasted a full minute—
Yet the twists within it had made his nerves tighten more than once.
Thinking back to that abnormal mana fluctuation that had emerged from Charmy's body, Yuuki couldn't help but feel the urge to complain.
(End of Chapter)
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