"You okay?"

Figuring the duel between these two clowns would not be ending any time soon, Lica had wandered off into the forest to find some berries to snack on, while Amber went chasing some butterflies all this while. It was by sheer coincidence that Blaze landed just a few meters away from Lica, who had crept up to him and been staring at him for a while after seeing him lie there motionless. She had a look of genuine concern on her face, as this was the man who was now (cursed with the responsibility of) feeding and caring for her.

"Yeah, I think so. Just resting a little."

"That's good. Be careful out there."

As Blaze sat up, Lica breathed a sigh of relief, then brightly smiled at him to raise his spirit. It was hard to imagine a wild girl who lived in the woods for the past decade and a half would ever act like this, especially towards the one who poisoned her and turned her over to the authorities, but she truly felt no malice towards Blaze right now. This was because during her ten days of imprisonment, she had undergone so much torture and beatings that her mind completely broke, reverting itself to the state of an innocent little child.

Blaze had come to accept that the risk of Lica bringing any harm to him was low, but it would take some more time from now for him to finally realize that her IQ was just as low. Nonetheless, he couldn't help but think that the petite woman in front of him looked somewhat cute for a moment as he saw her smile… until she ruined the moment by stuffing her mouth full with some berries. He shook his head and stood up, then looked towards Yequa in the distance.

"Well, I hope this isn't too extreme…"

Knowing too well that his opponent likely wouldn't be making any moves, Blaze recited an impossibly long chant, then channeled about a third of his remaining mana into his staff, resulting in its tip glowing a brilliant shade of red. A strange wind began to form around Yequa, blowing the wet sand around in circles, and the air current kept growing stronger and stronger in intensity.

"Fire Tornado!"

The spiraling air around Yequa then strangely burst into flames, causing him to be pummeled with scorching hot gusts and piping hot debris lifted up from the ground. Blaze had only ever used this kind of magic on large monsters before, so he wasn't fully aware that on a target as small as Yequa, the eye of the tornado was much less dangerous than the immediate vicinity around it.

This didn't mean that being trapped in the tornado was safe, however, as it was rapidly burning up all the oxygen inside it. Since it took almost two minutes since getting blasted away for Blaze to actually conjure this attack, Yequa had prepared himself sufficiently to deal with it. He had poured a significant amount of mana into his magic shield, giving him a somewhat thicker dome to protect him from the burning wind, and there was enough clean air inside his dome for him to breathe normally until his opponent would run out of mana.

Five whole seconds passed by. Then ten. The tornado was still raging on without ever diminishing in intensity. Yequa came to realize that his opponent had an abnormally high amount of mana, and decided that he had to act right away.

"I heard saunas are good for your health anyways…"

Yequa mumbled that to himself, then reduced the amount of mana he was pouring into his magic shield, causing it to weaken and him to start feeling the tornado's intense heat. Using that mana, he quickly fired off back-to-back shock waves, all in the direction of where Blaze was standing, causing volleys of hot rocks to get hurled over to his general area.

While the rocks themselves weren't life-threatening in any way, they were flying fast enough that some lodged themselves into the soft oversized vines near Blaze. Seeing them start oozing out a mysterious and ominous looking black liquid, Blaze couldn't help but worry for his life after remembering the short story about Yequa's colleague who died while trying to chop a mutated plant down. He quickly jumped out of the bushes and back onto the sandy battleground.

"Just give up already! Your attacks don't work on me!"

"Never!"

Blaze wasn't too hopeful about his prospect of winning, but there was still one last thing he wanted to try. If this didn't work, he thought, then maybe he'll consider surrendering and enslaving himself. Yequa didn't seem like a bad person, anyways.

"Fireball!"

A few seconds later, Blaze shot a fireball just one meter in front of him.

"Trying to blind me again?"

The dust cloud that formed just now was too far away for him to do anything, but Yequa was ready to make it rain over the area around him. More and more fireballs hit the ground, but all of them flew left and right, about twenty meters away from Yequa. There was nothing he could do to make the large cloud of sand dissipate, so he simply stayed alert as he waited for it to subside. His opponent had only made just a small region in front of him be shrouded in dust, while an entire 270 degree area around him was still clear. Surely, he thought, Blaze couldn't attack him from the visible sides.

One minute passed by, and the sand cloud started to disperse. The area in front of Yequa was not fully visible yet, but he could at least tell that there was no silhouette of his opponent there. Slightly to the right, a faint rustling sound came from the greenery, and Yequa immediately shifted his attention there. Blaze didn't pop out, but another faint rustling sound came out not too far from where Yequa was looking. He figured his opponent was going to try to circle around unnoticed, but his ears were good enough that it wasn't too difficult for him to listen to the sounds of the forest in this otherwise silent battleground.

"Huh?"

Yequa had already turned right by almost 90 degrees since he started following the rustling sounds, and it was only when the rustling came from an area with shorter shrubs that he noticed the tip of a gray tail sticking out. Blaze, being a human with bright red hair and clothes, could not have produced something like that, so Yequa quickly realized he had been tracking Lica's movement in the overgrowth this entire time. A cold chill ran down his spine, and he felt the sudden presence of someone right behind him.

Yequa's vision blurred when he turned around, as Blaze had smashed a large stone on his head. Blaze couldn't help but think about how his opponent's head could even be this hard, as Yequa was disoriented but still conscious after getting hit by something much harder than Blaze's staff.

"Embers, gather upon the tip of my staff and pierce through…"

Blaze had already finished chanting the first part of his next attack by the time Yequa came back to his senses and realized what was going on. Based on what he was hearing, Blaze was either trying to scare Yequa into surrendering or about to launch a fast moving spear of fire at point blank range. Fireballs were easy enough to block since the area of impact was large, but a spear would most likely penetrate through his magic shield.

It seemed like his opponent was betting everything on this one last attack, as Yequa could feel a large amount of mana leaking out of Blaze. With his foe dumping essentially all of his remaining mana into this next spell, there was no doubt that the spear he was going to launch would shatter Yequa's defense completely. The only option Yequa had now was to shove Blaze as far away as possible, so he quickly chanted his signature shock wave spell while sparing as much mana as possible into the magic shield that he now placed between him and his foe.

"Burning Spear!"

"Shock Wave!"

The two finished their chants at the same time, and a powerful shock wave sent Blaze flying in the air once more. He flew about forty meters back towards the forest, and passed out while still airborne because of mana exhaustion. He would later wake up to find him lying on top of an unconscious Amber, as his impact was broken by that unfortunate demihuman girl who was too busy observing an anthill to notice him flying towards her.

In any case, Yequa felt slightly relieved to see that nothing came out of the staff Blaze was holding as he sent his opponent flying away, but a closer look left him mortified. What Blaze was holding wasn't a staff, but just a random long twig instead. Yequa looked at the ground, then felt a sharp pain in his legs as he spotted one end of a vine at the location where Blaze was previously standing. He turned his head to follow the long vine, and found that its other end ran towards where Blaze originally stood prior to disappearing into the bushes. Tied to the other end of the vine was Blaze's staff, which was partially buried into the small pit created by Blaze's first fireball launch into the sand.

Aiming at Yequa was easy enough because it was a given that he would stand still. The mana leakage coming from Blaze earlier was because the abnormally long vine wasn't an efficient way to channel mana into his staff, but a spear of fire was successfully launched nonetheless. As Yequa's magic shield was not covering his sides, the fiery spear easily penetrated through both of his legs, singing the flesh around it. Yequa quickly put out of the fire and treated himself, then figured that he had just lost the duel: had his opponent aimed just a little bit higher, the spear could have ripped through his heart and ended his life. Given how he hadn't moved from his spot this entire time, he knew that Blaze had intentionally aimed low so as not to end up killing him.

* * * * *

I felt something poking into my face as I regained consciousness. How long have I passed out for?

“Yay! Yer alive!”

I opened my eyes and found Lica poking at my face with a stick. Behind her were unnaturally large and twisted trees, so it looked like I hadn’t been moved anywhere after getting blasted away by Yequa’s shock wave. My whole body was in pain, and it ached so much that I couldn’t move myself. I was lying on top of some strange bumpy terrain, and I couldn’t help but find it strange how none of my bones broke after hitting such an uneven surface at high speed. Maybe I was really lucky.

Wait a minute…

There’s a white tail sticking out at the corner of my vision…

Well, I hope Amber doesn’t kill me later…

I closed my eyes to rest some more, and found myself in an infirmary when I woke up.

It was quite a strange scene when both Yequa and I kept admitting our losses, so we reached a compromise: that I would pay for most of the reparations and occasionally help Yequa with his research when I have free time, and Yequa would let me off the hook for blowing up his office and research papers.