Chapter 5 – Each Special Trait

____________________Okay, I’ve got the idea now. Let’s go play with my new sword for a bit.

Some time after training to use ?Flame Edge?, the behemoth decided to take his training to the next level, and walked slowly until he reached a wall.

Here we go!

He raised his tail… er, ?Flame Edge?, then slashed against the stone.

JSHWAAA—!!

That should do.

He let the heat clear with the sound of something evaporating, the wall cleaved clean when he opened his eyes. It felt like cutting through butter.

This heat is something else! Sure ain’t your average everyday magic sword. I should probably be careful with it…

Next.

The behemoth cancelled out his ?Flame Edge?, then readied for the next ?Elemental Tailblade? attribute.

「Nyan (?Water Edge?)!」

When he invoked the water variant, a body of water gathered around his tail into the shape of a transparent blade. Like ?Flame Edge?, it was about two meters long.

You’re up!

For the sake of comparing strength on even terms, the behemoth conducted a slash on the wall similarly to the last one. After a wet crash, the damage done wasn’t as clean as with ?Flame Edge?, but it still took a sizable chunk out of the wall.

Hm. The raw power’s lower than ?Flame Edge?, but ?Water Edge? is faster to cast. Looks like ease of use corresponds to output like with ?Elemental Howl?. If that’s right, then the fastest should be…

To confirm his understanding, the next tailblade he tested was ?Aether Edge?. As expected—… No, it was beyond that. Before he even realized it, the skill was already complete. The blade was invisible, but he knew it was there, stretching from his rear end around his tail.

It’s so light. Just like the name says, it’s made of air. In fact, it doesn’t feel like it has any weight at all!

He gave the sword a few swings, and the velocity was markedly different.

It didn’t surprise him, though.

The wind blade, ?Aether Edge?, was formed of air currents, and came with the special characteristic of accelerating swing speed. It took no more than an instant for ?Aether Edge? to dig into the wall. Although the blade didn’t gouge the rock like ?Water Edge? or ?Flame Edge?, instead just shaving away at the surface. Naturally, the wind attribute skill had the lowest strength of the bunch, just like ?Aether Howl?.

But this is enough. Its power is low, but the speed more than makes up for it compared to any common sword. Plus, ?Aether Edge? is invisible! As long as my opponent doesn’t have strong mana perception, they won’t even notice this skill being active.

Any normal monster would have put an emphasis on raw power, so they wouldn’t care about the true worth of this skill. The behemoth, though, was anything but normal. There’s no way a veteran knight would mistake the value of such an excellent weapon.

And on to the last one, ?Rock Edge?, the earth version of the skill.

Going off its ?Elemental Howl? equivalent, its casting speed should have been second to last.

Or, so he thought.

Ah—the activation’s so slow. And… What the hell is this thing supposed to be!?

The behemoth stared at the completed ?Rock Edge? with a dumb look in his eyes. It was longer than the other Tailblade variants, about three meters long. Not only that, but it was exceedingly wide, and seemed to be made of some kind of polished stone.

The first three variants of ?Elemental Tailblade? so far were akin to katana-type longswords.

On the other hand, this ?Rock Edge? was more like a greatsword, with the weight to match.

Guh… It’s so heavy, too. Well, let’s try it out.

The behemoth was pulled along a bit when he tried to swing the sword, but he recovered his balance immediately. He trained with all kinds of weapons before his death, heavy swords no exception. All it took was shifting his center of gravity to go from longsword to greatsword.

So, he slashed away at the wall, and after a short swish there was a deafening crash.

Should’ve seen that coming.

Rather than any cutting sound, it was more like two blunt objects being slammed into then ground against each other.

The effect was within expectations, as well.

To make up for its extremely low speed, this sword of solid stone left a massive fissure in the wall that dwarfed the damage made by the other elemental variants. Pieces of rock were still crumbling and falling apart from the aftershocks.

I see. It’s a bit harder to use than the other swords, but it’s a damn good weapon. I could shatter armor in one swing with this beast. And even if this sword can’t beat a monster that easily, the impact damage is immense. ?Tailblade?, huh? What an awesome skill.

Once again, the behemoth absentmindedly admired the convenience and usefulness of his inherent abilities.

And then, he came to a sudden realization.

I’ve acquired some amazing new skills…

If I use all I’ve got now, I’m sure I can win against him.