Chapter 49: Scary ability

Alaric stayed still in his study for a few seconds after the first simulation ended.

He had died so quickly that he hadn’t even properly understood what Alice did.

But when he thought back on it, the problem wasn’t that Alice was overwhelmingly powerful.

The problem was him.

He knew that death inside the simulation wasn’t real, so there had been practically no fear or urgency in his mind. Not to mention, the strange pen which suddenly appeared above Alice had taken almost his entire attention.

By the time he finished reading what it wrote, Alice was already standing in front of him.

I was too busy looking at that pen which appeared out of nowhere.

Alaric immediately began the second simulation.

Once his surroundings changed, Alice appeared several meters away from him again.

And just like before, a pen manifested above her.

This time, Alaric only gave the words a quick glance before immediately throwing a knife.

[Alice avoided Alaric’s knife and closed the distance between them.]

Alice moved as the sentence was being written.

But now that Alaric was actually focusing on the fight, he knew that Alice wasn’t fast.

At least, nowhere near him.

Her body was stronger than that of an ordinary person, but among Squires, she could only be considered weak.

The strange part was how she moved.

The knife passed beside her by the smallest possible distance as Alice stepped forward without wasting any movement.

Alaric, wary of her, increased the distance between them as soon as Alice stepped close to him.

He leaped backward, increasing the distance and threw another knife immediately.

[Alice avoids Alaric’s knife.]

Alice moved again, but this time the difference in their physical capabilities was too great. The knife pierced her shoulder and completely ruined her momentum.

Alaric threw another knife into her thigh, then ended the fight with one through her neck.

The second simulation finished.

Well, she isn’t secretly some monster in physical strength.

He immediately entered the third battle.

This time, he focused more on the words.

[Alice reached Alaric’s left side before his next attack could land.]

Alaric narrowed his eyes.

Instead of attacking, he moved backward, but Alice still rushed toward his left side.

Alaric continued moving in a way that kept that side away from her, occasionally throwing knives whenever she came too close.

The strange thing was that Alice somehow kept finding good routes.

Whenever there were two directions she could move in, she chose the one which made it harder for him to attack.

When Alaric suddenly accelerated, she shifted before he could completely block her path.

But there was a limit to that since ultimately, Alaric was stronger in raw statistics.

He eventually cornered her movements with three knives and forced her away from the position mentioned in the sentence.

Then, one of his knives pierced her abdomen, killing her.

He started the fourth simulation immediately.

Once he paid with one coin, he could decide who to choose to fight, then have those ten battle simulations anytime he wanted.

He could also fight ten different people in those ten battle simulations.

In the fourth simulation, the pen wrote.

[Before Alaric could draw his second knife, Alice reached striking distance.]

Alaric thought for a moment, keeping one hand on his knife and the other ready to launch an attack.

He waited until she approached, then punched her hard enough to send her rolling across the training ground.

She doesn’t seem to be as proficient in combat as she is when writing those sentences quickly.

By the fifth fight, Alaric started understanding why the ability was so troublesome despite Alice herself being weak.

[Alice avoided the incoming knife and struck Alaric’s chest.]

Alaric had already thrown the knife, to which Alice shifted sideways, dodging it.

Her movement wasn’t something that impressed him, but the timing absolutely did.

She moved at exactly the right moment.

It wasn’t early enough for him to adjust the trajectory, and not late enough for the knife to hit.

Then, as Alice approached him, Alaric stepped forward to stop her.

His foot landed slightly awkwardly on the uneven ground.

It wasn’t enough to make him fall, but his balance changed for a moment.

Exactly at that moment, Alice’s palm landed against his chest.

The floating sentence vanished.

Alaric immediately grabbed her wrist and threw her onto the ground before finishing the battle.

When the simulation ended, he frowned.

That wasn’t skill.

There was no way Alice deliberately predicted that his foot would land awkwardly.

It was more like everything around the written event became slightly more favorable toward making it happen.

He started the sixth simulation, and confirmed that hypothesis of his.

Alice wrote that she would reach the other side of the training ground without being hit.

So he attacked her throughout the entire journey.

Despite his goddamn minor mastery in throwing knives, this was the first time he felt so helpless, and so diffident about that minor mastery.

Alice had managed to dodge all the knives he threw through coincidences like one knife barely missing because she stumbled at the correct time.

At one point, Alice moved behind him at almost exactly the moment he had already committed to throwing in another direction.

It was like even the rhythm of the battle was changing to what she wrote.

But once Alaric stopped experimenting and seriously blocked every possible route, the narrative finally broke.

Alice couldn’t do the impossible.

If there was genuinely no physically possible way for the written event to happen, reality couldn’t magically create one.

The seventh simulation revealed another weakness.

[Alice avoided Alaric’s next attack.]

Alaric simply didn’t attack. Alice would attack and he would keep defending.

Not once did he attempt to attack. Probably due to that, the words stayed above her head, not vanishing.

After nearly a minute, Alaric finally threw a knife.

As usual, Alice moved aside at just the right time, avoiding the thrown knife, and only then did the sentence disappear.

Almost immediately, the pen began writing something else.

Alaric’s eyes lit up.

He had found an important point of her ability!