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“Huh!”

I slid out of the way and slammed my iron club into his hindlegs with all of my might.

 

—Ggiiinn!

 

It felt like I had hit a coil of wire. Was their metal in its fur?

In spite of it being a full swing, it didn’t have a scratch on its body.

 

“It’s no use.”

 

And it didn’t look like it was hiding the pain. That meant my strongest hit had not done any damage at all.

This was bad.

 

Perhaps it was because I had dodged its jump attack.

This time, it kept its feet on the ground at it charged.

 

(I’ll be thrown into the air if I get hit.)

 

Even when it was on four legs, it was still taller than me.

It could easily kick away a large dump truck as it charged.

 

“Damn it!”

 

I changed the way I gripped the club and raised both hands in the air.

It now looked like I was hanging from the metal club.

 

If I dodged him by running to the side, I would just be hit by his claws or trampled to death.

And so I escaped by jumping high into the air as if I was a pole jumper, but it still wasn’t high enough.

 

“Hah!”

Just as the giant mouth tried to close over me, I jammed the iron club into its jaw.

Now that was something it had not expected.

 

“Ggggaaa!!”

 

It wasn’t able to close its mouth, and quickly became frantic.

I didn’t let go of his face and immediately went to work to remove the eyeball as I thrust my hand in.

 

I felt the wet orb under my fingers, but was torn off before I could crush it.

It was shocking. His claws had only scratched my back, but now there was a rediculous open wound running along my back.

 

I could feel the immense amount of blood dripping down to my legs.

“…Damn. This might be it.”

 

In the meantime, the monster managed to spit out the iron bar I had lodged in his mouth.

So, that’s how big the difference between us was.

 

As long as that difference in mana was so overwhelming, there seemed like there was little hope for an upset.

 

In the first place, what even was mana?

That was something I thought about a lot.

 

Everyone who lived in the Demon World had something in their body called the Orb of Control.

But it wasn’t an organ. It was something much stranger.

 

Its role was to store mana, while also keeping it flowing through your body. At least, that’s what I thought it did.

 

In other words, having high mana meant that your Orb of Control was able to store a lot of mana. And having lots of mana flowing through you meant you had more power.

 

And so those with low mana could not beat those with high mana.

That was the idea.

 

So, how could someone with less mana than their opponent win?

There was only one answer.

 

“I can’t win like this.”

 

“Hmph. You sound like there is still hope.”

 

“And what if there is?”

I said provocatively, as I took a few steps back.

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