The moment the signal to start the match rang out, Misery bolted straight toward Berbar.
Berbar was momentarily stunned by her movement as she closed the distance with the speed of a gale, but he immediately regained his composure and smirked.
(Heh! Doesn't matter how fast she is—if the power behind her attacks is garbage, it doesn’t mean a damn thing!)
He felt he had a firm grasp on Misery's fighting style.
From here, she would likely try to keep him at bay with her signature jabs while looking for an opening to land a heavy blow with the Magic Item on her right arm.
The left jabs carried little weight; he could safely ignore them. As for her right arm and the Wasp Needle, as long as she didn't land a clean hit on a vital spot, it wouldn't be a fatal wound.
Moreover, he was currently wearing the breastplate he had received from Cyan. With this, he would be perfectly fine even if Misery landed her most desperate strike.
Confident in his defense, Berbar prepared to weather Misery's light hits and launch a counterattack, but then—
"Shi!!"
"Eh? Ah—gah!?"
With a sharp, short exhale, Misery unleashed a left-handed strike. The moment it landed, Berbar felt a piercing sting and his face contorted in agony.
Thanks to his magic barrier, he hadn't sustained a physical wound, but the sensation was a far cry from a blunt punch; it was a searing, needle-like pain. It was only then that he realized Misery was wearing the Wasp Needle on her left arm.
(I-It’s not on the right? Why is the Magic Item on her left...!?)
Berbar was thrown into a panic by this shift in her fighting style, which contradicted all his data. Misery wasn't about to let that opening go to waste.
Lunging at her opponent once more, she proceeded to shower Berbar with a barrage of jabs faster than the eye could see.
"Shi! Fushi! Sha!!"
"Gih!? Guh!? Why you...!!"
Berbar swung his sword to intercept Misery as she stepped into his guard, but she had already landed three more jabs in that brief interval.
Though they were light hits, the pain of being pricked by needles imbued with magic power was impossible to ignore. Berbar was steadily accumulating damage.
"Hey, hey. What are you doing, Berbar?"
"You're just standing there letting her punch you! That's pathetic!"
"Shut up! Just stay quiet!!"
Losing his cool, Berbar clicked his tongue and shouted back at the taunts from his friends.
Misery continued her fierce onslaught, using quick, rhythmic steps to prepare for her next move.
"Damn it! What is she? How did she suddenly become like this...!?"
Berbar couldn't react to Misery's attacks at all.
He was letting her get close with ease, and he was forced to take her subsequent barrages almost entirely without a guard.
By the time he managed to swing his sword after taking two or three jabs, Misery had already danced out of reach. His straight sword cut through the empty air in vain. The reality of being unilaterally overwhelmed was rapidly stripping Berbar of his composure.
"What did you do?! How did you get those puny attacks to hit this hard? Did you use some rare materials to enhance that Magic Item!?"
"...I haven't done anything special, really. I'm just being more creative with how I use my magic power to suit my new fighting style."
Until now, Misery's Wasp Needle would shatter the moment it hit an opponent, no matter how much magic power she poured into it. It had been a failure.
However, despite simply switching the same Magic Item to her left arm, Misery's current attack power had surged several levels.
Her incredible jab speed was one thing, but the real problem was this firepower.
Though none of the strikes were decisive on their own, Berbar's face was now twisted in a mask of pain as he desperately tried to avoid being hit. Watching her from the sidelines, Yugo and the others discussed her impressive performance.
"It's going well. I knew Misery could do it."
"She worked so hard, after all. And Ann helped out, too..."
"I didn't do much," Anhel said, brushing off the praise. "I just made a few adjustments to the Magic Item. It’s Misery who’s amazing for utilizing it so well."
Misery’s strength as she cornered Berbar with a left-handed rush was now undeniable to anyone watching.
Her rapid growth wasn't the result of some high-end gear upgrade; it was purely the fruition of her own efforts.
That wasn't to say they hadn't touched the Wasp Needle at all... but what Anhel and Fee had done were merely minor adjustments based on Yugo's suggestion. They had simply modified the functions that assisted in the manipulation of magic power.
"It’s a very simple adjustment. We concentrate the magic power into the tip of the needle, sacrificing range for increased hardness. By doing this, we turned the large but brittle magic power needle into a short, hard one. Since the magic power consumption is low, maintaining that state is easy. And then, we added this—"
Anhel moved her index finger in a swirling, vortex-like motion.
As she stirred the air as if casting a spell, Melt, who was watching her from the side, spoke up in her stead.
"By making the magic power around the needle tip undergo spiral rotation, the piercing power is significantly increased. It’s an application of the functions of Yugo's Blaster!"
"Exactly. It was a simple but effective improvement, right?"
Yugo's Blaster was equipped with a Drill Arm. That mechanism used magic power to rotate micro-particle metal, creating a pseudo-drill. Misery was performing that same action using only magic power.
Naturally, because of the difference in mass, she couldn't match the raw piercing power of Yugo's Blaster. Even so, when combined with light-speed jabs, the damage it dealt was more than enough to turn the tide.
Since the needles that used to simply prick now carried a drilling impact due to the spiral rotation, her firepower was bound to increase dramatically.
"That left hand cannot be ignored," Marcos noted. "However, being wary won't help much. At the very least, a man like Berbar, who allows Misery to close the distance so easily, has no hope of stopping it."
By sacrificing range and her right-handed combinations, Misery had maximized her natural speed and her improved attack power. It was a formidable style once she got within striking distance.
Yugo nodded in agreement with Marcos's assessment. Berbar, who placed almost all his confidence in his equipment, would have no answer for her.