“Ugh . . . You’re so strong . . .”

Seriously! For a single person to be this strong, surely they would have to be some kind of monster, right?

And then, finally, someone threw a couple of robes into the arena as support for Raphtalia and Filo.

“What is this? I see! Fi—Humming! Put this on! It will nullify the lightning!”

“Woooow! Neeeaaat!”

Raphtalia and Filo threw on the robes that had been tossed into the arena.

“Little Rock, you can’t just keep hanging all over me like this, you know? Don’t you think you should approach our relationship a bit more strategically?”

“Shut up! I don’t have time for that kind of thing!”

Luckily, she no longer had a weapon, as far as I could tell. This was a chance I wasn’t going to pass up.

“Aww, that’s too bad. In that case, I guess I’ll make the first move.”

Once again, Nadia seized the chance to begin casting magic while Raphtalia and Filo were busy putting on the robes. Damn! Was there nothing I could do to stop her? The woman never really made much of an attempt to attack me, but even if she had, my counterattacks were pretty limited.

The Demon Dragon Shield had a counterattack effect called “C demon bullet,” but it didn’t seem like it would have much of an effect on Nadia. I don’t know if it was because it was categorized as a counterattack, but her Thunder Guard didn’t trigger it at all. I guess being able to counterattack counterattacks would just make things too easy.

At last, it looked like Nadia had finally decided to focus her attacks on me, perhaps because I was restricting her movement. I was sure it would just be some ranged magic attack. In that case, I would just surround us with shields and have them all fire off counterattacks at once.

Nadia began brazenly chanting her incantation.

“Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dritte Shield! Shield Prison! Change Shield!”

“As the source of your power, I command you! Let the true way be revealed once more! Lightning! Paralyze those before me!”

“Drifa Paralyzing Thunder!”

Wha?! She had cast a status effect-type spell that wouldn’t register as aggressive! I had completely miscalculated her intentions! I’d changed my shields expecting to produce a counterattack, but they showed absolutely no response.

“Ugh . . .”

The powerful paralysis magic loosened my grip on Nadia slightly.

“Oh! Impressive! That would have paralyzed a normal opponent and rendered them completely immobile, you know.”

While she was talking, Nadia took advantage of the tiny opening I had shown to escape from my grasp and put some distance between us.

“I’ve had to grow tough to survive.”