Vol 5 Chapter 105: “Caliber” (Vol 5: Final Volume: Another World?? Arc)

Yurari to.

A swaying aura.

No, rather than merely swaying, Holo herself moved with a rippling grace.

The fury in Holo’s eyes was more than enough to put the three of them on high alert.

Flip immediately recognized the woman before him as an enemy.

His reaction was instantaneous—he was a seasoned warrior.

He wouldn’t aim to wound.

He produced needles and launched them.

One was aimed at her eyes, forcing her to block it while serving as a blinding attack.

The rest targeted Holo’s shadow.

Flip’s needles could pin down an opponent by striking their shadow.

However, Holo plucked the needle aimed at her eyes with her fingers.

Without even glancing at the ones aimed at her shadow, she caught them with her foot.

“What?!”

They weren’t embedded in her foot.

No blood dripped from her shoe where the needles had hit, proving she had caught them between her toes.

“Kama-san!”

She had stopped needles launched by magic, using nothing but her bare hand and one foot—as if performing an acrobatic stunt.

Suppressing his shock, Flip immediately called out Kama’s name.

A moment later, Holo flung the captured needles straight at Kama.

Kama effortlessly deflected the needles with an upward swing of his greatsword.

But that wasn’t what Flip had tried to stop.

“Needles.”

That was precisely what Flip had attempted to prevent.

Kama’s deflection of Holo’s needles momentarily obscured his vision.

And beyond the path of his now-raised sword, Holo was already closing in.

At the same moment she softly muttered, a powerful strike landed right in Kama’s solar plexus.

Not a punch—Holo’s devastating kick delivered a full-force thrust with her foot, its tip hardened to the extreme.

Even Kama, accustomed to fending off attacks from massive monsters, lost his stance.

Using the speed of her withdrawal, she delivered another kick directly to his temple.

“Guh—!”

Carelessness.

He hadn’t even had time to cast his body-strengthening magic—but that was no excuse.

This was a problem beyond being perpetually on the battlefield.

Holo, after all, hadn’t used any magic herself.

“My apologies!”

One cannot secure a capture unscathed.

As Kama collapsed, Flip gripped a massive, spear-like needle.

He struck, aiming for the opening left after her attack.

However, she moved with a languid, ever-swaying grace.

Flip’s aim faltered.

Holo never stopped moving, minimizing any gap.

His thrust merely grazed her, slicing through the fabric at her side.

Holo gently placed her hand on the needle.

“Flow.”

At that moment, Flip’s strength wavered—and he was sent flying.

His strike had employed his full weight to maximize force, making the flow of his energy easy to read.

Even so, a veteran warrior like Flip shouldn’t have been sent flying, much less by an unarmed opponent.

“Impossible.”

Crashing into a nearby wall and struggling to rise, he looked at Holo as if witnessing something beyond belief.

And that was exactly what had once—

Her eyes held the same look as when she lost to Sukui.

“Foolish?”

Holo replied slowly, repeating her words as if questioning what was being said.

“Are you guys making fun of me?!”

Kama and Flip witnessed a fury they had never seen before.
Her bare hands could easily defeat the strongest fighter in this town—the overwhelming power made her skin tremble.

In a heavy, weighty voice:
“How could fools like you possibly beat Master!”

Weak.
Too weak indeed.

She had sensed that Sukui had become Demon King.
She had known he must be stopped.
She had believed it was her duty.
But…

As Demon King, Sukui should now possess power far greater than before.
Could she—who was even inferior to the original Sukui—really stop him?
A twinge of such uncertainty troubled her.

“You guys like you…”
Weak.
That is the beginning of the worship of death.
Yet at the same time, she thought,
“Fortunate souls who live with such weakness—where could the strength to stop Sukui come from?
Being strong means that you must become strong to survive.”
Holo knew the hell that existed among the strong.

“Don’t talk about Master as if you could challenge him when you’re no match for me!”

Flip had survived hell as the boss’s son.
That was why he couldn’t dismiss her words.
Because weakness would not have allowed him to survive that hell, he had gained strength.
And even before he needed the power to defeat the boss, he was aided by Sukui.
Kama, too, did not tread an easy path in gaining strength.
Yet, it was the same.

The strength of the girl before them had either experienced or anticipated an even greater hell.
They had no choice but to admit it: they were fortunate enough to live with only this level of power—nothing more.

As Holo raged, Flip tried to approach, intending to apologize for having underestimated her.
“Hey, you’re off track.”

Among the four—François included, who had been watching the proceedings with disinterest—
someone suddenly appeared.

“Even I can’t suddenly pull off long-distance teleportation. Let’s take a break here for now.”

“Huh? How long are we supposed to wait for that?”

Amid the ensuing quarrel they appeared:
a green-haired woman clad in armor, spouting her words in a confrontational jumble;
a tall, black-haired woman who coolly returned her taunts;
a young, brown-haired woman who watched the scene with evident boredom;
and a flashy, blonde woman, scantily clad, who simply smiled as she observed.

“Who might you be?”

François frowned at the four women who had suddenly raised a ruckus.

“Ah? We are—”

the Hero’s Party.
Gere the Warrior.
Marco the Mage.
Kasador the Hunter.
Shione the Playgirl.

“We teleported here using teleportation magic.”

When Marco mentioned that a short break was necessary, Gere clicked his tongue, thinking that perhaps he should have gone in person with the Hero.

“Honestly, you never change!”

At Gere’s words, everyone paused for a moment.
Kama opened his mouth as if witnessing something unbelievable.
“Co-could it be… the Grim Reaper…?”

“Hey! You may be good at taking care of others, but your skills are still as useless as ever!”

He had heard this from the woman and Sukui, yet the image before him was far from the battle-hardened veteran he had imagined. The fact that she was younger than him left him perplexed.

“After all—”

That she could be beaten bare-handed by a brat like that.

Gere said this with a sly smirk, his eyes fixed on Holo—whose murderous intent was evident.

He had a firm grasp of the situation. Naturally so—he was Gere, blessed with warrior magic.

Judging by the aftermath of the fight, he could tell in great detail just what had transpired.

“So?”

François interjected, his tone disinterested, as if to throw cold water on the conversation.

“What brings you here?”

It sounded brazen. François couldn’t help but think so, yet it wasn’t strange at all—they had suddenly shown up by their own volition.

“What do you mean? Haven’t you heard that the Demon King has appeared?”

Still, there was no need to ask for details. The Demon King’s emergence was exactly what the Hero’s Party was meant to confront.

“Teleportation magic doesn’t work on foes stronger than you. That’s why the hero gathers on site,” Gere declared matter-of-factly.

“We’re heading to defeat the Demon King,” came the response.

At those words, the first to react was none other than Gere himself. Almost simultaneously, the other Holy Mages stirred—and, unbelievably, others as well.

At Gere’s words, he noticed Holo directing her anger.

“You guys—”

“What?”

Gere’s response was not meant to be ambiguous. He understood that Holo’s words weren’t mere rambling. She was seriously, and condescendingly, challenging: Do you really dare take on the Demon King?

“For fools like you to think you can defeat Master…”

Disrespect—utter, unmitigated disrespect.

“Master?”

For a moment, Gere wore an expression of utter disbelief.

“Teleportation.”

At that very moment, Marco activated his teleportation magic.

“Hey, don’t just whisk us off suddenly!”

Gere grumbled—but he understood. The destination lay far from the City of Onus, along the road toward the Demon King—a barren wasteland.

There, four Holy Mages had teleported. And then…

“Here, you don’t need to worry about anyone watching,” one declared.

“How dare you get cocky, thinking you can defeat Master with this pitiful strength…”

Holo—alone.

“At least come at me. I’ll treat this as the preliminary round before the Demon King battle,” she challenged.

Gere reached for his sword.

“Huh?”

Holo responded by gaping, her eyes conveying complete disbelief as she fixed her gaze on Gere.

“Come at me?”

Simultaneously, she sprouted rocky wings and formed a ring of water.

“You’re the ones who should come at me,” she declared—utterly unhinged.

“I’ll take on all four of you together,” she added, daring them.

Only Kasador immediately accepted the challenge.

In response, the others were slowly overwhelmed by a heavy, suffocating anger that no one could ignore.

“Don’t say you’ll regret this,” Kasador warned as he rose from a prone position and stepped back, with Marco brandishing his staff.

“Hey, hey,” Shione laughed, though she too retreated further. That was their battle stance.

“You seriously think you can take us on?” Gere asked suspiciously, but with firm conviction.

“Enough,” came the cold, maddened reply from eyes that radiated insanity—completely unfazed by multiple overwhelmingly powerful opponents. On the contrary,

“Just get lost already,” she spat, the only emotion dominating the scene being her raging contempt for their pathetic weakness.