I Was Reborn, but I Was Told That the Popular Standard Skills Were No Good, so I Chose the Skill of Collecting [Title] - CH 255

“Come on, bozu, get ready.”

“Ah, yes.”

I was about to ready my sword when Grandpa suddenly said so.

“You don’t want to do anything?”

“Hmm?”

”Don’t you have to cloak yourself in lightning like you did earlier?”

“…Since when have you been observing us?”

Raiden armor is useful because it can be used for both attack and defense, so I always use it during battle. Now I was taking a break after fighting, so I deactivated it. And yet the fact that he knows means that he stayed unnoticed during the fight and was watching us.

Sophie also raised her guard at what he just said. She has magic prepared all over the place. I don’t know if he realizes this or not, but Grandpa is unperturbed.

“Magic can be anything, you know? Show me how serious you are.”

“Recovery triple half enchantment, spiritualization, devilfication, beastification, Raiden armor.’

I muttered that in a whisper that would never be heard. This way he won’t know what I did.

If I’m going to go this far, I don’t need to hold back anymore. I fixed my sword and sheath and readied them as I had done during the mock battle with Bequa and the others.

“What are you doing? Are you holding back because I’m holding only the sheaths of my sword? You can draw your sword. It won’t hit me anyway.”

“Don’t complain if you lose an arm.”

I pulled out my sword as I said that. As you can imagine, I was annoyed with this old man. I was annoyed just because he had suddenly told me to fight seriously from the onset. He was my elder, but I couldn’t take it anymore. Even if I really cut off one of his arms at worst, It’ll be fine because I have elixir.

“Let’s go then, shall we?”

“Yes, yes.”

The old man said and bowed his head as he saw me getting ready. I’m almost sure I’m going to win this match. I’m using spiritualization, so neither physical nor magical attacks have any effect on me. I don’t think he’ll be able to force my hand, like Sophie, since he’s a sword-wielding old man.

“Hoi…”

The moment the old man muttered something, he was in front of me. He was about to swing the sheath at my chin from below. It’s going to slip through me and he’ll end up with a sword to the neck.

“Huh?”

Suddenly, my crisis high-speed sensing reacted. This hadn’t reacted when I slipped through Bequa’s attack. In other words, there was some danger in this old man’s attack.

I hurriedly avoided the sheath by taking my head back. Then, I used the momentum of my backward movement to spin backward and move out of the way. Thanks to my backward movement, the sheath only grazed my chin. Yes…it was a graze. The attack of the sheath, which wasn’t supposed to hit me, grazed my chin.

“Bozu’s reflex speed, your appearance…are you really human?”

“What did you do, old man?”

We both had our doubts, so we paused.

By the way, even I myself don’t know the answer to the old man’s question anymore. I have a feeling that my race is not human, although [human] is in there.

“Well, that’s just by the way…”

As the old man was about to finish his sentence, my high-speed crisis sense reacted from behind me. This time, it reacted even though the old man was right in front of me. My bird’s-eye view confirmed that there was nothing in particular behind me. I reflexively swung my sword behind me anyway.

“I think I’ll slowly take my time and talk after this is over.”

“No!”

I was surprised that the sword I swung backwards was caught by the old man’s scabbard. First of all, even with my lightning shrink, it’s just a skill to move. After I move, I remain in the same position I was in before I moved. It was the same with the old man. But now the old man had moved and attacked. Clearly, the old man’s posture before and after the move had changed.

Furthermore, his scabbard caught my sword perfectly. My sword can cut almost any material. And yet, there was no sign of damage to the scabbard. The only thing I can think of is that the old man’s skill is good, or that the swords are made of the same material.

“Keep it coming!”

The old man said, and slashed at me, while teleporting rapidly.

“Bozu’s reflexes are much faster than mine were in my prime. But your technique for parrying attacks is fatally flawed.”

“Ku… lightning bolt.”

The old man said such things to me as he repeatedly shifted and slashed at me with his scabbard. I was annoyed that my attacks were being metastasized and lost, and I was even more pissed off that he was giving me a bad attitude from a superior position. So I delivered a lightning bolt at close range without mercy.

“Ho!”

However, the lightning bolt was deflected while slashing. But this was to be expected. This old man would have at least acquired a magic slash.

“Lightning shrink.”

I got behind the old man. My lightning bolt was gone, but I still had a bewitching grip on the old man. I was able to grab him thanks to the fact that he had finally stopped moving. My magic power is not strong enough to block the strong man’s movement yet. However, there must be time to break the magic power. Without it, there’d be no teleportation movement. I wanted that one moment. If I had that moment, I could cut him. I was sorry for the old man, but I waved Suiyami in my right hand with the intention of getting one of his arms. Even if he could evade me with a momentary movement, I would at least get a scratch. Even if the arm is cut, I’ll heal it later with an elixir.

“Excellent.”

The old man said, dispersing the remains of my attack. But it was too late. My sword will already hit him.

“…..”

But my sword didn’t hit him. No, it did hit him. But he had parried it the moment it hit him. If I was told he had done this with his scabbard, I would have understood. But the old man did it with his arm. He caught it and got under the sword I swung to the side. There was no way he could have done that.

As I stopped thinking, my crisis high-speed sensing reacted. He was about to slash me in the stomach with his sheath. I tried to jump backwards in a hurry.

“Ah…”

But the old man was stepping on the tips of my toes a little. It would have been easy to shake it off, but there was no time for that now.

“Gufu…”

“You were relieved that the attack had been successful. It’s a simple mistake, especially for young people.”

I was crouching because of the pain in my stomach when he said that. This old man…I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, but he hit me with a force just bare of knocking me out. Thanks to this, I’m in a lot of pain, but I’m still conscious.