Appearance (2)

Within minutes, the training ground was marred with craters as if bombarded.

Every time Adolf's orbs struck the floor or walls, a terrifying sound echoed.

If an ordinary person were hit, a 50cm radius around the point of impact would simply vanish. In other words, any strike to the upper body would be fatal.

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!

Whoosh- Boom!!

Loud noises and flying stone fragments followed wherever Pielott and Dier stood. Dust and sand billowed, stinging their noses; this place was already a battlefield.

Adolf hadn't landed a hit on either of them yet. Despite the surrounding chaos, their bodies remained unscathed, only their clothes were soiled with sand.

However, they were unable to approach Adolf either, so the fight had reached a stalemate.

‘Hmm! I thought I'd finish this quickly!’

Even Adolf's inner thoughts were laced with admiration.

These two, though similar in appearance, were quite different. Both were decent at dodging, though.

One had exceptionally good eyesight. Very few humans could directly face his high-speed, transparent orbs with the naked eye.

But that guy dodged while looking straight at them. His physical abilities, apart from his eyesight, were average. So his movements to evade the orbs were minimal, only what was necessary.

It was surprising, but that 'minimum' was probably his 'maximum'. Judging by how he staggered when he first blocked the attack, he probably lacked strength. He intended to dodge everything instead of blocking.

The other one covered most of the attacks with aura and physical ability. He, like other humans, couldn't see Adolf's orbs clearly.

He seemed to roughly gauge the direction and then just run or swing his arms to block. But his athletic ability was strangely good, so even though it looked close, he ultimately avoided getting hit by the orbs.

"Hahaha, oh dear! How long are you going to keep running away? You won't have any stamina left!"

Adolf briefly stopped his orbs, placed his fists on his hips, and shouted at the two.

It was an obvious provocation, but it wasn't wrong either. Pielott was actually having the same thought.

Thoroughly trained by Frondier, he didn't easily get impatient, but he was worried.

‘He's just swinging those orbs around, while we're busy moving our entire bodies to dodge. And if we make even one mistake and get hit, it's a critical hit.’

One side was unilaterally attacking, and the other side was unilaterally dodging. The outcome of this situation seemed obvious at first glance.

Pielott glanced at Dier. He was about to say, "We need to attack soon," when...

“……!”

Pielott stopped mid-sentence, surprised by Dier's action.

Dier raised his hand, fist clenched.

The meaning was simple.

‘Wait.’

─You two should decide on hand signals.

...That was the code Frondier taught them.

"When we need to move quietly or don't have time to talk, let's learn a few simple hand signals. Basically, Dier will give instructions, and Pielott will follow."

Frondier had said that when they were deciding on these hand signals.

Naturally, Dier had been mindful of Pielott's feelings. He thought the proud Pielott might be offended.

"Understood."

But Pielott had replied calmly.

"So if things get tough, I just leave it all to this guy. If something goes wrong, it's all his fault."

"Yeah, that's it."

Whether that meant he had truly swallowed his pride or not, Pielott had followed Frondier's suggestion.

A raised fist meant 'wait'. It was a simple hand signal.

While everyone in Frondier's original world would know this hand signal, the people of this world didn't.

Let alone the devils.

‘Huh...?’

So, for Adolf, Dier's raised fist and Pielott's surprised face were something he couldn't ignore.

‘What are they trying to do?’

Dier moved after Adolf's provocation. The act of raising his fist created the illusion that Dier was about to take some action.

As a result, Adolf's body stiffened for a brief moment.

In that time, Dier accelerated his thought process within two breaths.

‘Thin threads, transparent orbs, all methods to make them invisible to the enemy. Pielott is actually struggling because of that right now.’

Because Dier could see them clearly with his own eyes, he could see how cleverly the orbs were being manipulated.

‘But while he's spinning them, he uses aura. His aura isn't colorless. Then the aura should be visible while he's shooting them too. That would defeat the purpose.’

He used transparent orbs to hide them, but using aura would make them visible. That would render all his preparations useless.

But at the moment of firing, they became invisible to Pielott's eyes. Even for Dier, the orbs were flying so fast that he couldn't see them perfectly.

‘So, he doesn't use aura at the moment of firing.’

He increased the speed while rotating them with aura, and then released the aura at the moment of firing to make them invisible.

‘So, that manic chatter, expressions, and arrogant gestures are all bluffing to hide the act of spinning the orbs.’

While his original personality might be like that, Adolf's strangely excited speech and movements made it seem like spinning the orbs was just an extension of those movements.

But that wasn't the case. For the orbs to have that much power, the act of imbuing them with aura and rotating them was absolutely necessary.

‘If I can stop that rotation, the power will disappear, and if Adolf pushes himself to generate power, the aura will be visible.’

It wasn't important for Dier to see it.

What mattered was for Pielott to see it.

"Hmm! If you're not going to do anything, I'm coming at you!"

Seeing that Dier wasn't planning to do anything in particular, Adolf resumed his attack. Once again, the orbs spun in the air and flew around, and Dier and Pielott moved their bodies to dodge the fired attacks.

Even in the midst of this, Pielott glanced at Dier occasionally. His eyes also held a hint of protest, asking when they were going to attack.

But Dier, while dodging, still kept one fist clenched.

They hadn't decided on a hand signal like this, but the meaning was obvious.

‘Keep waiting.’

Pielott continued to focus on evasion, worrying about whether his stamina would run out before Dier came up with a plan.

But Dier's thoughts were a little different.

‘He removes the aura every time he throws an orb, and puts it in while he's spinning them. Even for a devil, it can't be easy to turn aura on and off like a switch.’

Dier had heard a rough explanation about devils from Frondier.

Pielott's most notable talent was his understanding and application of aura. And most devils possessed something similar to this talent.

Dier thought that alone was amazing. Pielott had known how to use aura long before he entered Constel.

It wasn't something he had learned right before entering Constel. It was as familiar and comfortable as something he had held in his hand from the very beginning, for a very long time.

But the fact that all devils were born with a similar talent made Dier, who was already feeling sorry for himself due to his lack of talent, feel even worse.

But even so, Dier thought:

The devils were probably inferior to Pielott.

Being able to use aura from the beginning was a racial trait of devils. But what Pielott had was a clear talent.

Unlike devils, who had a fixed range of ability, Pielott's upper limit had not yet been measured.

‘Understanding of aura...’

While training with Pielott, Dier had come to know him better than anyone else except Pielott himself. No, he might even know him better than Pielott himself.

‘Pielott will show him his place.’

Dier felt sorry for his inferior talent.

But it was Dier, not anyone else, who was handling Pielott right now.