68 – Climbing-3
It’s fierce.
If it wasn’t for the armor, I would have gotten sick of it dozens of times even if I was stabbed. Her spear was always in the correct position, and I couldn’t keep up with it.
However, she also failed to deliver a decisive blow.
It’s a physical game. She must have realized that she was not at a disadvantage, so her spear had slack.
“Go ahead!”
The distance could not be shortened. Anything that upsets the balance should be avoided.
I will gradually eat away at my stamina like this, then throw that net at the critical moment and tangle me.
Perhaps, that was the thought.
“Are you tired already?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… No!”
Quivering breathing, slack footwork, heavy body.
She wasn’t wrong. The opponent I fought recently was weak enough to be incomparable to this Letarius.
No, that wasn’t enough to call someone weak at my level, it was normal.
Her stamina seemed intact. You might think it’s a bluff, but everything you do in the ring costs you physical strength.
Feint, dodge, attack, defense. Even just standing still and staring at the other person’s movements with a lot of tension.
In terms of actions alone, I would be the one who acted much ‘less’.
I made a lot of effort to close the distance, and if I didn’t respond to her attack a bit excessively, I had no choice but to get stabbed somewhere.
However, as much as I advance, she has to hold her posture. She had to readjust her distance by spearing or backtracking.
Besides, she was the one who attacked first. Compared to me, who reacted reflexively to her movements, she must have had a lot of fatigue thinking about which trajectory and how much force to stab the spear with.
However, I was the one who got tired first.
No matter how much you get used to it, physical strength is always a relative factor.
Even if you have the stamina to move with full force for about ten minutes while wearing armor, it is meaningful only when you can defeat the opponent within it.
Even if you can move around with decent body movements for about twenty minutes, if you don’t decide the outcome within that time, your stamina is insufficient.
Just by wearing this heavy armor and responding to the opponent’s movements, my stamina was steadily declining.
“Are you feeling a bit out of breath?”
“Huff, whoop…”
And if you were a gladiator, there was no reason to miss your chance.
This is enough. My body has already reached its limit, and my sword has become dull. He didn’t even have the strength to attack.
However, physical strength is not a quantified asset.
I was in a state where even moving the sword was difficult, but neither I nor she knew how long this ‘state as difficult as moving the sword’ would last.
Simply ‘How long is it now?’ I think that I can go through this situation, and then, unexpectedly, I can struggle without collapsing.
So, I will take a peek at the opportunity. Her left hand was moving slowly. Her hand holding her net was glaring at me like a wolf watching its prey.
“Quit!”
After stumbling a bit, I saw Letarius, who was very focused, casting a net.
Actually, it was unusual for her to last this long.
There is no reason to use a net at a crucial moment.
In the first place, no matter how powerful the net is, there is no dramatic effect that can paralyze the opponent at the same time as throwing it like a taser gun.
He hadn’t seen many sword fights, but he didn’t know how the retiarius fought.
They couldn’t drive the opponent with a single spear like this. Even if there was a difference in range, it was not a common situation to overwhelm all swords and shields with a single-handed spear.
She was able to perform these skills because of the difference in her level. In the fights between ordinary gladiators and Letarius, they actively used nets.
These are people who have been training how to handle nets all their lives. The weight of the net, which was mixed with stone powder, did not necessarily become effective only when the opponent was tied tightly inside.
Restricting movement across the tip of a sword or shield is beneficial, and being able to restrict the opponent’s posture or distract the opponent’s attention in a way other than the spear is itself a good thing for Retiarius.
Of course, compared to the spear, the attack through the net had to invest a lot more attack, but even so, it was not necessary to spare the attack to this extent.
However, she couldn’t help but think that there was only one reason why she handled the net so carefully.
I was looking at her hand even when the net was flying at me.
In the first place, it was too late to avoid it. I had no intention of avoiding it, and it was difficult to evade the attack of the net spreading through the cotton.
Letarius’ fingers were caught in the net.
“Haap!”
I let go of the sword and pulled the net with a lot of weight.
I could feel the taste of the net, which was full of floor dust, on my tongue. Like a fish caught by a fisherman, I fell into a net and became unable to move.
However, there was no gladiator who could deliver the final blow to me.
“Ahhhhh!”
She lost her balance,
.
At the last moment, I was complacent. If you really wanted to beat me, you should have just thrown the net into the air and given up on retrieving it.
Power is power, but weight is different. It is the weight of an adult man’s physique plus the armor.
She must have been wary of that too. If you let the net fly as a check, and I snatch it the other way around, the charter will change.
Now that I gave too much strength to the net, my body came along with it, but I couldn’t retrieve the net if I didn’t apply too much strength.
So, he was aiming for an important opportunity. After I was sufficiently tired and convinced that I could not easily pull the net with this angle and this situation, I threw the net.
Her plan wasn’t wrong. I don’t know if I expected to let go of the sword and pull the net, but objectively, the net went in properly.
The heavy string pressed down on my already heavy body. It will take some time to shake this off.
Even if she lost her center for a second, there was no way I could approach her.
However, I did not pretend to be tired for the future.
It was true that my body was tired, but I exaggerated it more than necessary.
He did not hide the shaking that he would normally have endured. I made it so that she could naturally feel that I was exhausted.
Everything was for this moment. When she couldn’t stand it and threw the net, in order for me to retain more of the ‘very little’ power.
The net covered my body, but my height was longer than that of an ordinary gladiator.
Normally, her net, which should have left over the enemy’s entire body, barely managed to wrap my feet.
I thought the armor was heavy, but this net was not easy either.
I heard that the string was mixed with stone powder to increase the weight, but in terms of experience, it felt like they were just tying stones with a string and holding me down.
However, I was able to walk. Just two steps.
“Awesome!”
She is the one who once threw her balance off.
If it were an ordinary situation. There would have been no way that I, who was tied up in a net, would have fallen into a heavy hug.
However, she didn’t expect this, as her posture faltered until she almost fell. She might have thought that she would pick up her dropped sword again, or that she would untangle the net and reap her profit.
Because of the flesh of the net, which is denser than it looks, I couldn’t get my arm out of the net, even wearing a protector.
However, I gave her body a tremendous shock even with a very short moment of acceleration.
“It’s so…”
She fell over my body. The spear was not an appropriate weapon to subdue the attacking opponent in such an urgent situation.
Victory was right in front of us. However, it wasn’t over yet.
Even if she was crushed under me, and her thin clothes were torn to shreds, it was not a step to ensure her victory.
“Kyaaa!”
Press her left arm with your weight. I checked where Retiarius was kicking his dagger during the fight.
The net was already laid over my body, and the spear wouldn’t be very helpful, but even that is rolling from afar.
He put her hands together and strangled her.
The net didn’t make her look pretty, but since I was on top of her, she had no way to respond to that clumsy attack.
“…Eup, ugh…”
I was embarrassed. According to the rules, you couldn’t claim victory simply by putting your hand to your neck.
According to the rules, forced victory was recognized only when ‘a blade was attached to the neck or a destructive part of a weapon was inserted’.
But if I want something more here, this time her really seemed to be killing her.
“…Ah.”
As I loosened her breath for a moment, I could see that her reddened eyes were filled with tears.
“Ha… I surrendered. I lost. It’s really, filthy heavy.”
He must have been resentful of losing, but more than that, it seemed that he couldn’t even say surrender because he really couldn’t breathe.
From noble mtl dot com
It was not the way I wanted to write again. I removed the net clinging to my body and looked at her collapsed body.
Only then did I realize that it was over. Won
“…”
Raising my head, I found Dana looking at this sword fight.
My goal was in a higher place.