Chapter 208: Application

“This is—!”

Shana suddenly started running. Then, this time, she disappeared from sight.

Kink!

I blocked the invisible scythe that came to slash my neck. After all, this covert is invisible until attacked. If it hadn’t been for the Crisis High-Speed Sensing and Divine Reflexes, I wouldn’t have been able to prevent it. Come to think of it, Shana’s covert also seems to nullify magic high-speed sensing. It cannot even sense magic.

And from there, Shana attacked unilaterally.

“It’s difficult…”

I’ve attacked severally, but my attack didn’t hit at all either. I wish that were all, but I can’t see a future where my attacks will hit. They were all evaded, as if it were nothing. And I don’t know whether I should follow her with my eyes or rely on my high-speed crisis detection.

No matter how many times I swung my sword or kicked, my attacks didn’t hit, so it seemed I had no choice but to use magic.

“Lightning Bullet!”

With spirit magic, lightning was released from the tip of the sword at high speed, like a bullet. However, it was blocked by a stone wall made without chanting. Before I could release the lightning bullet, she had already started to create a stone wall. And it blocked only the lightning bullets with pinpoint accuracy. It seems that my actions were perfectly read. It’s more like a prediction of the future.

“Lightning Double Enchantment.”

I changed Lightning enchantment to Lightning double enchantment because it wasn’t good as it was. However, my attack still didn’t hit Shana. It was closer than before, but I still didn’t feel like I could hit her.

“Spirit Zeal Descent.”

This time, I used Spirit Descent. I thought about adding another enchantment, but I didn’t think my attack would hit with one additional enchantment. So I decided to end it with a barrage of high-fire magic with no chanting in the spirit descent.

“Oh come on…. seriously?”

Most of the attacks from Shana are gone, but she’s either preventing or dodging all of my spirit magic barrage. This was causing my magic power to dwindle rapidly.

While I was thinking of what to do, Shana came to me through the lightning. Then she swung her scythe at me.

“Ah… time’s up.”

“Oh, oh!”

And Shana fell toward me. For a moment I thought that was part of the plan, but then she closed her eyes and seemed to be completely out of it. I’d already started swinging my sword, ready to repel the scythe, so I hurriedly stopped it and let go. Then she let go of the scythe and I caught her as she fell to the ground in a hug.

“Mock battle is over, the winner is Zero-niisama.”

As I caught Shana, I heard Sophie’s voice saying that the mock battle was over. Then Sophie walked straight to us.

“Good morning…”

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Shana woke up at the same time as Sophie arrived.

“I knew I couldn’t win, but I didn’t think you could hit me at all…”

“Haha…”

It’s not good if I’ve already evolved and I’m struggling against a non-evolved Shana. But if the fast reflex hadn’t evolved into a divine reflex, the attack would have hit me a few times.

“So what was that earlier?”

Shana’s mood had obviously changed since her eyes changed color.

“That was an application of the mind’s eye.”

“The mind’s eye?”

It seems that the mind’s eye is a skill that allows one to see the mind. Incidentally, this skill has been acquired since she was five years old.

By concentrating her attention on her eyes, she was able to read the depths of Zeros’ psychology.

When I asked her for details, she said that earlier she had seen deep into my mind and was familiar with all my behavior patterns. So she was able to avoid my attacks to the extent that I suspected she was predicting the future.

“But I still have a lot of weaknesses and am still developing.”

“What? Is that so?”

“It can’t last very long, I can’t target more than one person at a time, I can’t do complicated magic while it’s in use and the effect wears off when you take your eyes off the target for three seconds… it’s still a mess.”

“Oh, I see…..”

It seems that in Shana’s self-assessment, she’s not quite there yet.  Then she might be able to read my reflexive movements. If that becomes possible, will I be able to win?

“Even so, Zeros and Sophie are strange.”

“Strange?”

“When I had a mock battle with Sophie, she instantly understood what I was doing and unleashed her magic mindlessly.”

“Can’t you read the depths of a person’s psyche without thinking?”

If you read the depths of the mind, does it matter if you are mindless? I thought. Even if you aren’t thinking about something on the surface, even if you are in the middle of a battle, it’d be impossible not to think about anything, even in the deepest layers of your mind. Then she would know what Sophie was doing.

“Impossible. Almost everything in her deep psyche was filled with you. It would be difficult… or impossible, to extract anything relevant to the battle.|

“I considered that if you wanted to read the depths of my mind, you wouldn’t be able to do so if there was a large amount of irrelevant information. So I kept thinking about my brother, who’s the easiest person to think about.”

“………”

Sophie looks at me as if it’s natural, but I’m quite taken back. I’m not normally able to think about her enough to hide my combat-related thoughts in the middle of battle.

“But Zeros is even stranger.”

“Eh…is that so?”

When someone says I’m stranger than Sophie like that, it makes me feel somewhat uneasy.

“Yes. I can still understand what you’re doing, even if you were mindless on the top and deep down you’re thinking about something else. But you suddenly do things you don’t think about anywhere else.”

Apparently I don’t think when I move reflexively, using my divine speed reflex. So there were many times when Shana was convinced that the attack had hit with this, but the attack hadn’t.

“I was able to hit Sophia, but not once did I hit you, Zeros. That was frustrating. Let’s have another mock battle.”

“Eh? I thought we were out of time.”

“I rested, so I’m fine. Get ready.”

“Let the mock battle begin!”

“Still no prep time?”

The mock battle started again.

And the battle continued until dusk, with frequent breaks for her eyes….

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