I looked at the monitor and saw Niku and Toy that were fighting in the arena.

“Oh, they’re already doing it.”

“Kehma, let me see it too.”

While saying that, Rokuko sat down beside me without opening the monitor herself.

She smells good, like a sweet scent of Melon Bread.

“Rokuko, did you use perfume? Melon Bread scent?”

“Is those exist? I want one then.”

“I don’t know.”

“Who had the upper hands?”

“Hmm, for now, it’s Toy. By the way, when did Niku learn to launch five fireballs at once?”

I give Nerune a phonograph golem that contain the chant, I wonder if Niku borrowed it when Nerune had already finished with it.

How diligent she is.

“There were other chants that I recorded, but I wonder how much of it she remembers.”

“Is that so? But, Kehma, I’m betting on Toy, so I will be rooting for her.”

“Good luck then, Niku, give it your best.”

I cheer for Niku through the monitor. By the way, when I looking at them like this, they show us a really similar expression.

*

“Even if you’re a failure, you seem to know one or two things about magic, well, it’s pretty good. But how about physical arts?”

“I won’t lose.”

“Oh? Not even trying to win? So, a failure puppy is just a failure after all?”

“I won’t let it get over my head. That’s all.”

Niku closes her distance to Toy.

“Slow–”

“naive…”

Toy reacts to Niku and thrusts her club. However, Niku catches the club and then spins it around to bash her. Toy’s defenseless back got slammed twice.

“jump”

Toy jumped with skill from an impossible position. It’s the skill features that allow her to execute that absurd movement. Basically, it’s a physical skill that improves your jumping ability, but it can be used for emergency evasion.

“using a skill? Expected, weakling.”

“Hm… it was a convenient skill; how can you not use it? Only an idiot will refrain from it, oh wait, there’s one puppy who did.”

Toy snorts and laughs. Niku glares at her.

However, their eyes are locked to each other, trying to find an opponent’s opening.

“#######,#####,###,##–Curse dance”

“##,#############–Fireball”

Niku slams five fireballs into the dark-colored, disastrous spear that Toy unleashed, destroying it.

“Ahaha, could it be that’s all the spell you can use? As expected from failures, you have a very limited number of moves, huh?”

“Not showing it, why should I?”

“That’s true. But I need to show Kehma-sama my resourcefulness, so he understands the extent of my ability, so I shouldn’t hesitate to use it, right? ###,############### cast pillar.”

The ground cracked. A black pillar the size of a grown man grew out of it—a purple haze created around it, giving it an unapproachable atmosphere.

“Don’t worry, this one doesn’t have the ability to kill – it’s just a cursed so anyone that touches it will be controlled. Ufufu, that’s right, would it be fun to make you do sexy dance?”

“####,###########,####—-summon skeleton.”

Niku summons a bone soldier to hold the tower. The skeleton soldier begins to do belly dance, but let’s ignore that.

“Oooh? Summon spell? You seem to have the basics down, don’t you?”

“I’m going to get serious.”

“Oh, dear. Well, then I’ll be half-serious.”

“then, I will be half-half-serious.”

“is that so? I will be half-half-half-serious then.”

They started to exchange childlike talks – no, wait, they’re actually children – and glare at each other.

“Fine! I’ll… I’ll deal with you in one thirty-second (1

/32)of seriousness.”

“Then I’m, um, um, I’m one-sixteenth. See that? I can also divide by double digits. Master taught me.”

Hmph, Nik proudly blows her nose, and Toy puts her hand over mouth and laughs a small “pfft” at her.

“Kukuku, you’re twice as serious as I am!”

“?, Isn’t 32 times two is 64? You suck at math.”

“Haha! Wait for a second! Puahaha, It’s a fraction, my dear puppy! Oh, but I can’t blame her for not being able to do elementary level arithmetic, can I?”

The bigger the denominator – that is, the bigger the number to be divided, the smaller the result, but unfortunately, Niku hasn’t studied fractions and decimal points.

In this world, if you have the ability to count integers, that is more than enough. (Many adults cannot do multiplication and division properly.)

“I’m not sure why, but I feel like I’m being ridiculed. I’m going to hit you.”

“I’m not making fun of you, it’s just the fact that you are an idiot. Ahahaha!”

Then their attacks and defense begin continued.

Niku doesn’t hesitate to thrust her wooden knife, aiming for Toy face. The aim is her silly laughing face, but of course, Toy avoids it by kicking away the blade.

The next moment Niku kick aim at Toy’s club. Anticipating this, Toy drops the club and try to aim for Niku’s legs joints.

Toy abandons the club and delivers a kick to her knee’s back – her one leg is lifted, but Niku does not collapse. Golem Assist. A secret Toy doesn’t know makes reality turned out different than it “should” be.

There is a slights moment of surprise. But after that very moment, Niku swung down her kicked-up leg back down on Toy’s head.

“ugggh!”

“Sorry, I faked the opening, and you bite it. I did that on purpose.”

“Damn you, damn you failure dog.”

“I’ve been training in the Demon Kingdom. By the way, what shall I call you? A Loser Dog? A good name, right?”

“How could it be good? What kind of a cheat did you use to make a failed project to become a winning dog?”

“Complete control of your body, and don’t let your opponent use you. This is the essence of the Demon King arts.”

“Tsk, it’s the damned Demon King’s arts…!”

Toy knows. That the goal of the Demon King arts is ‘complete self-control’. You can say It is the ultimate selfishness that is not influenced by anyone or anything. If one managed reaches the extreme peak, they can control his body, mind, and even their soul as they wish.

It was Niku’s bluff, but that was the kind of skill that the Demon King arts used. Toy didn’t expect Niku to be able to use it that well.

“Then I’ll take you seriously this time, too. The Chaos School will swallow everything. Use what you can use, even your enemies. A thousand and one changes, all things are in torrents – Kaleidoscope!”

The next moment, Toy divides into four.

“How about this? Failure puppy?”

“Isn’t this simply a technique for creating three illusions–?”

“The presences are perfect on all four bodies, right? that’s the difference.”

“The original technique of what school was it……..I forget. Anyway, it’s a secret technique.”

And then one by one, they spoke to Niku in turn.

…No matter how you look at it, there are four of them.

“””” Let’s go, shall we?””””

And then the four Toy come at Niku, all at once–

“…C, there.”

— but Niku hit the second from the right without hesitation. She punched the main body Toy with her elbow.

The three clones disappear.

“Gah, ughh! Did you just find me in one shot!?”

“You’re need to concentrate to control your clones, which makes it much easier to hit you. it was an excellent move, though.”

“…tell me, how did you know?”

“Believe it or not, it’s luck. This is my lucky day. So, do it again, and I might miss it next time, okay?”

“…liar.”

Toy laughed enviously and flopped down.

“Well, let’s just end it as me losing today. It’s also the role of a junior to follow their senior.”

“Good decision, Now, Toy… bow down.”

“…like this?”

Toy bow down quietly. And then Niku climbs onto her, and stand in her head. Maid dog on maid dog.

“…Mm. It’s a moderate ride.”

“…n.”

Surprisingly, Toy accepts it without complaining, but it’s no surprise since she’s on the losing side. That was the way it goes for both of them.

Niku put her weight on Toy’s head a couple of times as a reminder and got off Toy.

“Let’s get back, Toy.”

“understood~~.”

Toy obeyed Niku’s order meekly. She brushed the dirt from her clothes and head with a flick of her hand and followed behind Niku with a pitter-patter.

This was the end of the ranking ritual.

By the way, Niku’s earring is also a cloth golem that Kehma had prepared for her.

I’m sure you’ve known about gramophone golems, hidden inside that earing is the same mechanism to produce sound. Its purpose is to send a voice to Niku via dungeon function communication since she’s not a dungeon monster.

A small voice that can only be heard by Niku through the golem was Kehma’s voice. Just now, Kehma secretly delivered the following conversation to Niku.

“Hey Rokuko, if you had to guess, then which one of those four is the real one? A to D from left to right.”

“eh, What? Well…C?”

It’s not her own victory. Niku didn’t call Toy a ‘loser’ because she realized that.