Mushoku Tensei Jobless Reincarnation Vol. 9

looked more or less exactly how Nina had pictured him. He wasn’t quite as
skinny and weak-looking as she’d expected, but he certainly wasn’t
intimidating. And while his face wasn’t unattractive, his insecure body
language made him very unappealing. A good match for that mangy Eris.

All right then, time to beat him down…

But before Nina could speak, the young beastman strode up to Rudeus
and began to bellow at him. “I take you to be Quagmire Rudeus, the A-
ranked adventurer who cut down a stray Wyrm single-handedly! I challenge
you to a matrimonial duel, sir!”

Nina was startled, to say the least. The beastman hadn’t mentioned
anything about challenging Rudeus to single combat.

“You know, I’ve actually got piano practice today…” Rudeus, for his
part, declined the duel in the least manly possible way. But the young
beastman spouted off some confusing justifications, jumped right in front of
him, and instantly attacked.

Nina assumed Rudeus would be torn apart in a matter of seconds. This
beastman was clearly a competent fighter, although perhaps not on her level,
and Rudeus was a magician. Every swordswoman in the world knew that his
kind was helpless up close. There was nothing a mage could do when
someone got the drop on them.

And yet, things somehow turned out very differently. Rudeus defeated
the young beastman in no time at all. The fight lasted all of three seconds, by
Nina’s count. If you blinked your eyes, you might have missed it. Without so
much as a backward glance in her direction, Rudeus promptly walked off,
leaving his unconscious foe lying on the street.

It took a few minutes for Nina to recover from these startling events.
She had to take some time asking around again, but eventually learned that
Rudeus was now in the library.

By the time she’d gotten directions and headed over there, there was a
large group of beastfolk lined up neatly outside the building. Nina found this
curious, but it clearly had nothing to do with her. She headed straight for the
entrance.

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But as she passed by the crowd, a beastman called out to her. “Do you
intend to challenge Rudeus to a duel as well?”

“Uh, yes… that’s right,” Nina replied thoughtlessly.

“Then get to the back of the line!” shouted the man. “You don’t get to
jump ahead!”

Apparently, this entire line consisted of people who wished to
challenge Rudeus to a duel. Confused and astonished, Nina turned around
and headed toward the back. There seemed to be at least thirty people ahead
of her.

As she went, a beastman near the front of the line called out “Sorry,
kiddo. That’s too bad.” She didn’t know what that was supposed to mean.

In any case, waiting seemed to be her only option, so she waited.
Morning gave way to afternoon, but Rudeus gave no sign of emerging.

And then he appeared.

A demon with obsidian skin and rippling muscles suddenly stood
beside them, looking down at the group with an arrogant smile on his face.
“Hoho! What’s this line for, friends? Is there a festival going on?!”

“This is the line for those who wish to challenge Rudeus Greyrat to a
duel!”

“Is it indeed?! And there’s so many of you, too! Bwahahaha! The
boy’s in great demand, I see! I’m a patient man, of course, but is there any
way I could get a shot at him first?!”

The beastfolk didn’t take this question well at all. Shouts of “Get in
line!” and various insults came flying from all directions. Nina was furious
too. She’d come a very long way, and she was waiting patiently. She told the
demon to wait his turn like everyone else.

But then, in the midst of all the jeering… one fool said something he
definitely shouldn’t have. “You want to go first, big man? Then you better
defeat everyone who got here before you!”

“Bwahahahaha! Lovely! I like the sound of that! Come at me, all of
you. As a reward for your boldness, I’ll let you take a free shot before I crush
you!”

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The unbelievable arrogance of this remark drove all the others mad
with fury.

“What the hell did you just say?!”

“You’re gonna regret that, shithead!”

Moving almost in unison, the beastfolk leapt to the attack, eager to
teach this pompous idiot a lesson. Before she really even understood what
was happening, Nina found herself joining in as well.

Long story short: she lost. Badly.

She hit the demon with the Sword of Light, fully intending to kill him.
And he shrugged it off. Her blade hadn’t penetrated his skin. She’d made a
shallow surface cut, but the wound healed instantly before her very eyes.

“I am the immortal Demon King Badigadi! Bwahahaha! I’ll bestow the
title of Hero on anyone who defeats me!”

Compared to many of the others, Nina’s effort was fairly respectable.
But the Demon King was on a whole different level. Before she could even
think up some sort of plan, he’d caught her, smacked her brutally to the
ground, and broke her beloved sword apart.

As she lay there groaning in pain, her mind was full of terror and
bewilderment. Why was she fighting a Demon King in the middle of some
school for magicians? What was a ruler from the Demon Continent even
doing all the way out here?

Everyone else was thinking the exact same thing, of course.

Mere moments after Nina fell, Badigadi finished off the entire group of
beastfolk. Somehow, although most were injured, none seemed to be dead.
He’d taken it easy on them.

The moment she realized this, Nina shed bitter tears onto her quivering
fists. But no matter how deep her frustration, she couldn’t do a thing now that
her sword was lost.

“…What the hell?”

In that exact instant, Rudeus had emerged from the library. He spoke
with the Demon King for a time, after which they moved elsewhere.

Grimacing, Nina forced herself to stand and dragged her battered body

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after them. Rudeus and the Demon King were standing at the center of a huge
open courtyard, sizing each other up. They appeared to be talking about
something. Sometimes she could hear snatches of booming laughter, but it
was impossible to make out any of their discussion.

The duel finally began after a strangely quick-footed boy brought a
staff to Rudeus.

Nina saw the whole thing from start to finish. Not that it took very
long. Rudeus took his staff, unsealed it, mouthed a few words, and pointed it
at his foe. And a split-second later, the Demon King’s entire upper body
exploded violently.

The man had defeated an opponent Nina couldn’t even compete with.
The man her hated rival loved, the man she’d assumed to be worthless, had
destroyed a Demon King with a single attack. And Eris was trying to ascend
to his level.

Faced with these facts, Nina’s mind went blank with shock. She didn’t
remember what happened after that. Before she knew it, she was back on top
of her horse, heading for the Sword Sanctum.

But when she made it back there, and saw Eris swinging her sword
with single-minded focus, Nina felt something. Something that she hadn’t felt
before.

***

After that fateful day in Sharia, Nina Falion turned over a new leaf.

She devoted herself to her training with even greater vigor than before,
and began to carry a second sword, in case her first was ever broken. She
stopped mocking Eris for her tendency to lash out with her fists. She grew
more distant from the other girls her age, who she’d never truly been that
close to.

And when she looked at Eris, whose determination never seemed to
flag, her gaze was not so harsh as it had once been.

In time, the two of them would become true rivals. But that’s a story
for another time.

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Incidentally…

Rumor has it that the Sword God, who’d been sharpening his sword
excitedly after hearing of the Demon King’s arrival, sheathed it with a
disappointed expression after Nina reported what had happened.

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About the Author:
Rifujin na Magonote

Resides in Gifu Prefecture. Loves fighting games and cream puffs.
Inspired by other published works on the website Let’s Be Novelists, they
created the webnovel Mushoku Tensei. They instantly gained the support of
readers, hitting number one on the site’s combined popularity rankings within
one year of publication. “Now that I think about it, I never paid that much
attention in school,” said the author with a tinge of regret.

245 Goldenagato | mp4directs.com

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