Ludere knew how to progress.
Like most people who had paid attention, he knew his numbers. He could count, and he knew how to get to higher numbers. This was by no means a universal experience for his peers.
He knew how to calculate the odds on a fight. In fact, he calculated many odds without even thinking about them.
He now knew how many he could take one-to-one.
His combination of skills was constantly calculating odds. Now that he was actually fighting with his skill, he could see how addicting it could be to bid on oneself. Especially when the fighter in question knew their abilities and could scan their opponent's abilities.
A long time ago, some Senator or another made a rule for the arena. Whoever had made the rule that fighters couldn't bet on themselves unless they were betting they would win was smart.
Ludere was neither of those things at the moment.
His stubborn urge to get this right might be the end of his short vision, but he needed to see this to the end.
His current need? What he wanted the most was to get two of the demonic lieutenants to attack him at the same time, so that he could pit himself against them. These were odds that he couldn't calculate without some experimentation.
Thus, he decided to take the math into his own hands.
One, if it was overconfident and rushed at him, he could deal with it.
Two? He'd never known two of them to work in concert, together.
Their foot-soldiers would obviously work against him, one-on-one and in a group.
He wouldn't let them envelop him, because that was the pathway to him dying faster, but his real dream of getting two lady demons to give him their attention at the same time was not panning out so well.
"I don't understand why you're not attacking me at the same time. How am I a threat? I've killed over four succubi before. Two of them are in this very battle that we're having right now. Bring it on!"
Both demonic lieutenants had taken up points below him and were continually ushering foot-soldiers forward to fight him. By now, the arena had either emptied itself out of any bystanders, or in some cases had only a few pockets of resistance left. That is a few pockets. Besides his own little pocket. He could tell that the hulking demons, the elite leaders, were giving him a fair amount of attention.
Their glares alone made him wince.
By now, he'd been able to identify at least eight specific succubi. Based on the way that their horns lay, he could pick them apart. They didn't wear any insignia that he could really divide them up into different areas. They all wore the same type of outfit. It looks like they all shopped at the same tunic store. Two of the succubi were holding back and milling around the mass of demons in the center of the Arena. Those two clearly wore togas on top of the tunics, which had them stand out. Additionally, the only demons that wore sandals were the succubi. All of the base foot-soldier demons were shoeless, with their three-toed end claws digging into the dirt wherever they went. That made it easier for them to climb, but disgusting to look at. The hulking demons had the same types of claws but a much larger version. Those two, he didn't want to come into anything approaching contact with, despite the amount of times that he'd met them up close.
It just wasn't endearing to be squished by a large, red demon. Long-term, he wanted his relationship with people to not rely on them, destroying him utterly whenever they saw him.
Neither of the succubi were taking his taunts.
He was really trying, too.
"Your mother smells like a good person! You look like a Prefereti! Oh, come on, that always works for the other kids!"
Nothing got to them.
Each time, they would send roughly a dozen foot-soldiers at him, and it was clear that they were controlling them somehow. So it was definitely possible that if they were using Soul Magic, that he could learn how to do what they were doing. Perhaps it was different for demons, because he didn't think that the average demon foot-soldier was that intelligent.
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Indeed, after killing nearly a hundred of them, he was almost certain that they were about as dumb as he had been when he was a toddler. He had to think about how much of an idiot he had been, in order to explain their utter mindlessness in a single direction.
"How many of these can you toss my way?" He picked one up by the leg and tossed it towards the closest one. "I can do this all day."
Continually defeating the base demons was the kind of thing that made him slightly overconfident. Three dozen dead demons before him, and one dead succubi, was at least a passable resume for any passing grammarian—though he imagined that they would want him to do more.
They always did, if the stories were to be believed. If this all ended someday, he promised himself that he would get a proper education. He might even see about getting to the academy that the Prefereti sent their scions to.
That would be the most that he could change. If this was a longer loop? He might have the time to learn what those people thought was important to learn.
Unfortunately, the succubi were not learning anything. After he threw the sixth demon at them, he decided to up his game.
He killed a demon and immediately threw it, at the same time slamming his foot into the rock and sending a cone of shrapnel at where the succubus would go. It was all about the odds that she would actually follow through with the small movement that he was pushing her towards.
If there's one thing that he prided himself on, it was his ability to show a lady a good time. So when the succubus stepped away from the thrown body of her comrade, expecting nothing, she was sprayed with shrapnel from the stone that nearly overtook her immediately.
"I heard that ladies like rocks. Perhaps we'll see how much you like stones, eh?"
The succubus on his right knelt down, face and chest covered in a mass of blood. He turned to the one on his left. She left the ground, jumping halfway across the gap between them in an instant.
Her sister was still recovering as Ludere dodged the first attack. At least, they had looked like sisters. He wasn't going to judge. What was a little nepotism between demons in the same legion?
Up, higher into the arena, he had the benefit of height. For as far as she could jump forward, the height was an issue. He fully engaged his core, setting up his spear for the attack.
She came at him, all fury and rage, trying to find an angle of attack. Unfortunately for her, she came alone. He had the high ground, and he was not going to give it up. With the amount of pain she got from his spear, it would be unfortunate.
Instead of folding on the pressure, he neatly pierced her straight through the chest. It wasn't a killing blow. He didn't know that he could give a killing blow right that moment, but he would do his best.
Pulling out of the succubus was difficult. But she wasn't going to go anywhere. His other option was to hit her with shrapnel.
As she reached forward, trying to get at him from the other side of his pointy stick, Ludere smiled.
He stepped on the ground, imbuing his foot, pushing Willpower into it to break the stone up.
Shards of stone fell to the ground, and he instantly imbued them, picking them up into the air and pushing them forward using his full Willpower.
It shredded her face and eyes.
Instantly she looked out of the fight. Clouds of blood puffed out of her face. He needed to not let this be a distraction that overtook the rest of his battle.
As she was clawing at her face, he drew his spear.
She swung wildly trying to get at him, but he just deftly moved backwards. The more he gained in Spear Proficiency, the more he appreciated the reach they afforded him. It would not have been able to survive her claws at close range.
It just wasn't feasible.
But this? Stepping backwards and moving away from her?
He could do this.
He wanted to tell her some quip that he had saved up. She continued to clear out her eyes while he looked out for the other one. The shrapnel had been effective with both. For the first one, the distance, combined with the size of the shrapnel pieces, had become an effective deterrent.
For the second one, the cloud of tiny rocks and stone were going to make it so that this succubus was unable to see out of her eyes ever again. If he couldn't incapacitate them, he would accept blinding them. He wouldn’t die without doing that at the very least.
It wasn't just on him. He needed to grind his skills. He would get the repetitions in with his skill to advance it.
The only question was which one he should use.
Will? Soul? Both? How would he get a sense of their Soul Magic?
That was probably a problem for his next loop.
Whatever had set him on this path, he would see it to the end. If this kept going he would be inevitably killed.
Shoving his attacker face-first into the ground, he marveled at how strong a demon's head was. He was using all of his strength and then, only because he was imbuing his arms, was he able to compress her head.
The crunch wasn't satisfying, but it was utter finality. His Unarmed Combat went up again.
Ludere smiled. Even if the onslaught of common demons was still coming at him, they still balked at a dead succubi.
"You know what I should do? I should toss you at your friend. That... oh, she's pissed now."
A layer of steam was clearly coming off of the succubi that he had hit first. She was advancing towards where she thought he was, one hand on a demon. Clearly he was being her eyes.
"Oh, you're still coming? Excellent. Bring what you have. Even if you need help walking."
Was there dishonor in defeating a foe who couldn't walk alone? If so, he wasn't going to let it stop him.
"Be a real shame if you lost your friend."
The two demons paused to get absolutely shredded by a cumulus cloud of shrapnel.
"That was a lot of Will. Damn. You think you know someone."
Ludere stepped over to the succubi, running the odds.
"Sixty percent odds to finish off two succubi at the same time? Yeah, but try getting them to attack you together," he grumbled. "Or getting them to return your messages."
