Chapter 125: The Duel

POV Ansgar

I entered the duel against the devil with the sharp fangs, a woman, as it turned out. But I didn't care about gender, as I wasn't someone who discriminated against others. What I did care about was her overbearing and arrogant manner. It really got on my nerves. She showed no sign of respect at all, something I had never encountered with the people I knew before. I wanted to show the woman what my axe could do and I didn't need any help from the others. I could do it on my own, after all I still had three aces up my sleeve.

We were standing about 20 meters apart, facing each other. You couldn't see her face through her hood, which was pulled low over her face. If her voice hadn't given her away, her gender would also have been unknown. The only thing that was visible was her long dagger. An expert look at it showed me that it was a normal dagger, the kind wielded by people around level 35-40. My experience in forging weapons came in handy here. I already knew her level and knew that we were roughly the same level. Her physique was hidden by the cloak, but even with a lot of imagination she was slim. So she couldn't be very strong. She was no match for my muscles anyway. During my training with the guards and soldiers, there was no one who could compete with me in terms of pure strength.

"Are you ready? Then on three, two, one, and go." <Cornelius>

Cornelius gave the signal and I stormed off. If I could decide the fight with one punch, I was happy with the result. I would have preferred a more challenging fight, but I didn't want to be petty. It was about defending our honor and therefore it was most important to win.

I put all my energy into the attack and swung my axe in a wide arc straight at her from above. I could even kill them, but I accepted that. According to our rules, killing your opponent was not forbidden. My axe whizzed towards her and she only just managed to dodge it. I made a deep dent in the ground I hit instead and small fragments flew off in every direction. I quickly wrenched my axe around and used the remaining momentum for another attack, a technique I had practiced for a long time. How fortunate that my axe had a blade on both sides.

But she narrowly managed to dodge it too. Not bad, girl, this promised to be amusing. Then I felt a sharp pain in the back of my left knee. She had managed to land a hit with her dagger, but a quick glance at my status showed me that it had done little damage. That wasn't enough, girl, you're only making me stronger. Because now my first ace, the Berserker, activated. It meant that my attack and damage increased, the more damage I took. I could feel the fighting spirit growing inside me.

POV Cornelius

After I gave the start signal, Ansgar immediately stormed off. As so often, he tried to decide everything with the first blow, but his opponent skillfully evaded him. He took his momentum into another attack and missed again. Then you saw a brief twitch of one of her daggers towards the back of his knee, where a small wound appeared. Nothing to worry about. But didn't she only have one dagger in her hand at the beginning of the fight? I turned to Javier to ask him about it, but he made a worried face.

"What's going on, Javier? What are you worried about?" <Cornelius>

"Hmm, I'm still wondering why I don't see her status. She must have a powerful artifact that hides her status. The effect is too strong for the Concealment skill. It would otherwise be just as high as my Appraisal. If her skill is that high, she must have a lot to conceal, really a lot. But she must also have spent a lot of EXP on it, which is not possible for levels around 40. So it makes more sense that she has an innate ability. But why is she hiding her status? Wouldn't it be much more inconspicuous not to disguise any unremarkable skills? As far as I've learned, you can use it to hide specific skills and lower or raise stats. So why everything, even the attributes? Are they so conspicuous that she has to hide them? I don't know much more about concealment, but in my mind, there should be a lot more to it than an empty status." <Javier>

“Aren't you worrying too much about that?” <Cornelius>

"Hmm, maybe, but I can think of another possibility. What if her skill is only just equal than my appraisal and she can only make a few changes to her status because of it? If she has appraisal herself and knows how good mine is, then she has little time to react. But that means that I could outperform her skill with a small increase. The potential information is worth a lot, but unfortunately I can't increase my skill any further." <Javier>

"What do you mean, Javier?" <Cornelius>

"Hmm, I wanted to increase my appraisal so that I could still see her status. But my appraisal is at its maximum value. Conclusion: I can't see her status with my current resources." <Javier>

“Activate healing!” <Ansgar>

POV Javier

I turned back to the fight and saw the two of them standing about 10 meters apart. Ansgar had just used a one-time artifact to heal Stamina. The devil was standing perfectly still and almost casually relaxed, while Ansgar was already breathing heavily. I used Appraisal on him and saw that his stamina had already dropped by more than half. His three physical characteristics, especially Strength, were increased, probably by Berserk. His health had already dropped by about 20% and was slowly dropping further. His three mental characteristics had dropped by about a third and he had the status effects Confused, Light and Bleeding, Light. The second probably caused the drop in HP, while the first caused limitations in his mental characteristics.

While I was still observing his status, Ansgar roared a battle cry. Apparently he attacked again, but only seconds later he received a minimal hit. The devil had dodged his wild attack and managed to hit him on the left forearm with her left dagger. I looked at Ansgar's HP and discovered the Poisoned, medium status effect. As a result, his HP dropped much faster.

"Cornelius, quick, distract the woman! Sis, quickly, Ansgar has been poisoned with a medium poison. If we don't act fast, he's in danger. Soldiers, protect Ansgar while Eleonore heals him!" <Javier>

A flurry of activity broke out around me. Eli gulped audibly and started casting spells immediately. Cornelius drew his sword and shield and charged towards the woman. Meanwhile, she had dodged Ansgar's attack by taking a step to the side and then quickly jumped back several paces.

"What's going on, noble hero? It is not proper to intervene in a duel. Are you not taught decency, or is it normal among heroes to besmirch the honor of a duel?" <Eliza>

POV Cornelius

An anger boiled up inside me like I had never experienced before. The humiliation of hearing her presumptuous words made my head run red and I lost all control. I stormed loudly towards her. My attacks were wild and uncoordinated, but I didn't care. I just wanted to silence this woman's voice. I could barely hear the words of my companions and didn't even notice how a Stun Bolt was conjured past me and hit the woman full on. However, she was not paralyzed.

"Why are you interfering in my fight? That was my fight, my duel!" <Ansgar>

"Ansgar, shut up and let Eli heal you. You've been poisoned and without help you'll die soon." <Javier>

"Poisoned? When was I poisoned? I didn't hear anything about that." <Ansgar>

He looked at one arm and a purple to black discoloration appeared where the last attack hit him.

"Cornelius noticed it after you activated your heal. It must have been sometime during that time." <Javier>

"Damn, damn, damn, I was so close. I only had to hit her once. Damn." <Ansgar>

The voices of my comrades no longer reached me, I only felt the rage inside me, a blazing anger. I wanted to defeat the person in front of me, the target of my rage, with all my strength. But then I fell and landed hard on my face on the ground. A sharp pain shot from the center of my face into my head and stunned me. I grabbed my face with my right hand and noticed blood running down my fingers. I screamed and rolled on the floor. Then I noticed how the pain subsided and I calmed down. When I opened my eyes, I was lying on my back on the floor, looking into Eli's tear-streaked face.

"Corni, luckily, you're okay. I was so scared for you." <Eleonore>

She threw herself on top of me and took me in her arms. I was deeply confused and looked around. Where had the woman gone? How is Ansgar? What had happened anyway?

"Hmm, if you're looking for the woman, she's gone. After you lunged at her like a berserker, you tripped over one of the dead goblins and landed full on your face. You broke your nose in the process and the blood ran in streams. Then you started screaming at the top of your voice. Eleonore panicked and healed you immediately. Apart from that, we're all fine, even Ansgar after he was freed from the poison." <Javier>

"I feel like I'm drained. The poison cost me a lot of LP, but thanks to Eli, that's been cured. When was I poisoned anyway?" <Ansgar>

"Hmm, at some point during the fight, the devil must have picked up a dagger from the ground. Anyway, she had two in her hands from then on. We found the dagger because it still had your blood on it. It looked like other from the goblins. It was also probably poisoned. She obviously dropped it when she fled. You were really lucky that I was watching your status and noticed that you were poisoned." <Javier>

"Damn, I want revenge. Even if poison wasn't illegal, that was really sneaky. I could have been killed." <Ansgar>

"Hmm, we'll have to be better prepared next time. And to be honest, Ansgar, you had no chance at all. You didn't even hit her and she rarely attacked you, but every one of her attacks was a hit. She seemed like she was toying with you." <Javier>

"Damn it, don't tell me that. Now I feel even worse." <Ansgar>

"Ansgar, take this fight as a lesson and work on yourself. Your light armor will be your downfall now. You're too slow against fast opponents with your big axe. If you at least had stronger armor, it would have hit you less." <Cornelius>

"Hell no. They're too bulky for me and I'm even slower in thick armor. No, there must be other ways and means so that I can stand up to them better." <Ansgar>

“Did the woman do or say anything else?” <Cornelius>

"Hmm, yes. We'll meet again, heroes. After that, she turned around and ran away." <Javier>

"We'll meet again? Oh yes, we will. We'll make her pay for the humiliation, but we'll have to get stronger to do it. Guys, let's go back to the capital and train in the Dark Dungeon. I don't want to stay here for another 24 hours." <Cornelius>

"One more thing, Corni. Why were you so angry with me? I didn't do anything to you. That really hurt me." <Eleonore>

"I'm very sorry, Eli, I didn't mean to. But ever since we met the devil, I've been angry, very angry. But I have no idea why. It was so bad towards the end, too, that I can hardly remember what happened. That's never happened to me before." <Cornelius>

"Hmm, he's right about one thing though, Sis. You should work on your jealousy. It's getting worse and worse and we've just seen that women can be strong too and not all of them are interested in your boyfriend." <Javier>

"Big Bro, can we leave this topic and talk about it another time? I want to get out of the dungeon, just like Corni." <Eleonore>

"All right. Guys, let's go." <Cornelius>