My match against Tarte began.

She wasn’t being the same timid Tarte as usual.

My intuition was right.

I could already tell from her tactics.

Whenever Tarte and I sparred, she would ascertain the situation first. But here, she suddenly propelled herself forward with all her might and launched a one-handed thrust.

It was the fastest and most effective way to make a move. She was forcing me to take an initiative.

Attacking me from a distance where I, who was fighting with a sword, couldn’t reach was a wise choice.

『She’s fast.』(Lugh)

I did expect her speed to increase thanks to【Beastification】.

But she moved at a speed that exceeded my expectations, and she almost got me there.

…Strangely enough, even though the power of【Beastification】was added to the mix while her physical abilities were already improved, Tarte was perfectly making the best use of her capacities.

It was as if her awkwardness when practicing a while ago was nothing but a lie.

I barely managed to parry her thrust rush with my sword, but she immediately pulled back and switched to a flurry of stabs.

She made good use of space. Being able to attack one-sidedly from a distance that my sword couldn’t reach was the advantage of using a spear.

And her blows were fast… and heavy.

Even though she was continuously thrusting at me, she put her back into each one of her attacks without hitting me with her bare hands.

If she did, I would hit her back to create an opening and close the distance at once, but given the speed and weight of her attacks, I couldn’t resort to that.

I tried to close the distance while blocking her spear, but the more I closed in, the more she backed off.

She made the right decision with a cool head.

I tried to wait for her to catch her breath, but her stamina had also been enhanced.

I feared that if all I could do was block, then I would be the one to go down first.

My hands started to go numb. I couldn’t take much more of this. My defeat was drawing closer.

[I see you’re somewhat different from usual today, Tarte!] (Lugh)

However, there was no way I was going to lose.

If I couldn’t close the distance, then I could just stay back.

I jumped backwards with all my strength.

Far enough so her spear couldn’t reach me. It was time to start over. I would deal with the numbness in my hands and my shortness of breath somehow.

Tarte stiffened for a moment.

In a battle between spear and sword, closing the gap was important for the sword user.

And yet, the fact that I dared to keep my distance was unexpected.

However, her hesitation only lasted an instant, and naturally, she closed the widened gap with an accelerated thrust rush.

…Indeed, her decision was calm and efficient, but monotonous. Using the exact same tactics against me was foolish.

I’d better correct her on that.

I gathered all my strength and broke into a run to match the speed of Tarte’s accelerated thrust rush.

[Wha-!?] (Tarte)

Tarte was confused.

Her thrust rush consisted in thrusting her spear while propelling herself forward in order to increase its offensive power.

However, if I closed the distance like this, there wouldn’t be enough for her to stretch out her spear, drastically reducing its offensive power.

Well, even so, the distance between us wasn’t short enough for my sword to reach her.

But that wasn’t my aim from the beginning.

I wasn’t randomly charging at her, I was going for a thrust rush myself.

My sword couldn’t reach Tarte, but my real aim was her spear, which she was half-heartedly using to attack.

The tip of her spear clashed with the tip of my sword.

And then, the spear shattered.

Of course, the proportionality between the hardness and shortness of a sword was its strong point.

Moreover, Tarte’s thrust was interrupted because I closed the gap with her, so this was the result of our clash.

In addition, there was a difference between Tarte, who was confused and had her weapon destroyed, and me, who had planned to destroy it from the beginning.

I took advantage of the short time Tarte remained frozen to take a step forward and land a short uppercut on her at super close range.

I did that a few times faster than when I pulled back my sword.

Her jaw trembled, and she should’ve lost consciousness there.

However, her reaction was light.

[Well I’ll be damned.] (Lugh)

I smiled bitterly. The moment my fist connected with her chin, Tarte willingly looked away. This weakened the shock and shifted the point of impact even more, which helped her avoid a concussion.

Tarte couldn’t dodge the blow at all.

It was a perfect low blow and a sure hit.

Or so it should’ve been, but she managed to defend against it by reflex thanks to her sixth sense, her animal instinct.

I had no idea【Beastification】could even enhance that.

Tarte’s eyes seemed to light up as she fell back, and the next moment, I felt a blunt impact, and my body bent in a curve.

Tarte’s knee was slammed into my stomach.

[Gah…!] (Lugh)

Then she followed up with her second attack. I couldn’t move in my state and tumbled with a dull thud.

That was when Tarte got on top of me and pinned me down by my shoulders.

[Haah… Haah…] (Tarte)

Tarte looked down at me while panting hard.

Her expression was that of a beast.

The impression of an adorable fox she was giving off with her ears had drastically changed, and now she looked like a real carnivore.

[It’s my loss. I didn’t think I would lose to you, Tarte. Now could you move over, please?] (Lugh)

If Tarte had stricken me in the throat instead of grabbing my shoulders and holding me down, she could’ve killed me.

In other words, she won this match.

So in the end, I lost, huh. Even I was still too green. The moment I landed a short uppercut, I was convinced I was going to win.

Because of that, I got her knee in my stomach.

…Maybe I had become too self-conceited at some point. I had to sharpen my skills again. Believing that it was over without even confirming the enemy’s death was disgraceful for an assassin.

[Lugh-samaaa…!] (Tarte)

The fight was over, but Tarte didn’t move away from me.

On the contrary, she was still full of excitement, and she was applying more and more force on my shoulders.

Was this the fighting instinct of an animal? No, it was something different. It was an instinct alright, but it was something more intense than belligerence.

As I was pondering the question, my clothes were torn off.

An amazing feat, considering that these clothes were armor spun from mana-woven threads.

Tarte leaned over and rubbed her whole body against mine.

Her tail was wagging, occasionally touching my thighs and tickling me.

It was an adorable behavior, but I couldn’t move at all because of her tremendous power.

I thought fox-style【Beastification】was leg strength oriented, but it seemed that her arm strength was effectively enhanced, even surpassing my own.

[Haha… Lugh-samaaa…] (Tarte)

Her body felt unbelievably hot.

Also, her scent was making my brain tingle, and it was driving even me crazy.

Then I finally understood.

That fire in her eyes wasn’t her hunting instinct kicking in, she was just in heat.

…In other words, now that Tarte had made me her prey, I was in the middle of being sexually assaulted.

So what should I do?

I looked sideways and found myself eye to eye with Dia.

She was staring at me.

Needless to say, being assaulted by another woman in front of my girlfriend would kill my pride as a man.

No way Tarte would be happy about her first experience being daytime outdoor reverse rape.

However, I figured something out. If I put resistance here, I would make Tarte, who had lost her mind, terrified of me.

I would attack her until she couldn’t move and get her to calm down. That was the idea I came up with.

…I had no choice but to use【Beastification】too.

With this, I could overpower a beastified Tarte and push her back.

…For various reasons, I didn’t want to use it if I could help it, but I couldn’t tell them to anyone.

In the meantime, Tarte was squirming and finished rubbing her body against me to move on to the next stage.

Her chastity was about to be in danger. Better hurry.

But then…

[Hyah! Ah…! Ah…! I-! Wha-!? What have I done…!? I’m so sorry! Lugh-sama, I assure you I didn’t mean to do that! That was, uhm… Well…] (Tarte)

The moment Tarte’s fox ears and tail disappeared, her lustful eyes went back to normal, and she blushed so hard that she seemed to burst into smoke, and she was covering her face with her hands.

[Erm, look, why don’t you get down from me and fix your clothes first?] (Lugh)

[Ye-yesh!] (Tarte)

Tarte, who had been riding me in a disgraceful manner, tried to get off of me in a hurry and fell over, showing me an even more shameful sight.

Yep, same old Tarte.

She quickly fixed her clothes and then bowed her head to me as hard as she could.

[I cannot apologize enough, Lugh-sama. Everything seemed to have turned bright red, then I found myself in such a position.] (Tarte)

[I know. That was a downside of【Beastification】.] (Lugh)

I didn’t believe that Tarte had a desire for reverse rape.

[Ugh… I will never use this power again.] (Tarte)

[Could it be that you didn’t want to use it at first because you had a hunch this would happen?] (Lugh)

And here I thought it was because Dia and I kept calling her cute and pretty in that form.

[Well… When I first activated【Beastification】, I felt strange when I looked at you, Lugh-sama, and then…] (Tarte)

[I see. But if your training goes well, you should be able to keep it under control. You may not remember it, but you managed to beat me, Tarte. It would be a shame not to use that kind of power.] (Lugh)

Tarte was really strong in her beast form.

Enhanced physical abilities, wild instincts.

Not only that, but her lack of hesitation was also a strength.

Tarte was too kind, too timid, too concerned about others, and her hesitation caused by her lack of self-confidence was a hindrance.

That was what her【Beastification】did away with.

[I will work hard. But if I am ever about to do something crazy, please stop me.] (Tarte)

[It’s a promise.] (Lugh)

This was also a painful lesson for me.

I still had much to work on.

At that moment, Dia joined us.

[You know, Lugh, you didn’t seem to put much of a fight back then. Could it be that you wanted Tarte to force herself on you? So that’s what you’re into. Interesting…] (Dia)

I thought she was angry, but judging from her facial expression and gestures, I’d say she was mostly trying to tease me, but also a little jealous.

[Provoking her uselessly could’ve proved dangerous in that state. That’s all there was to it.] (Lugh)

[…Is that so? Okay then. But you know, I’ll accept your fetishes no matter what they are, Lugh.] (Dia)

[You don’t believe me, do you?] (Lugh)

[I didn’t say that, and I don’t mind the fact that you were strangely fond of Tarte’s fox ears and fluffy tail.] (Dia)

That, huh…

I admitted that Tarte looked cute with her fox ears. So much so that I wanted her to let me use her fluffy tail as a pillow.

But asking her that could prove dangerous. I would wait for her to master her abilities first.

A week had passed since then.

By that time, both Tarte and Dia had learned to use their new abilities, and I had finished negotiating for appraisal paper, which should be delivered to me in five days.

And then…

[At last, there’ve shown themselves.] (Lugh)

It seemed that a demon-like creature had been discovered in the northern territory.

I was requested to be dispatched there as a holy knight.

I was now ready to fight the demons.

It was time to see how far I could go with my demon-slaying magic.

There was great significance in achieving this.

In order to save this world without killing Epona, if there were more and more people able to kill the demons and the Demon King, then the burden on the hero would be lightened, and the possibility of Epona turning into a calamity would be drastically reduced.

I wanted to succeed smoothly.

I prayed for that once again.