Just how strong was Torina in combat?

If Lord Glairel was a perfect 100, then Torina before awakening probably wouldn't even break 30.

But if you counted her past-life awakening, her cheat drop, the power of yuri, and anti-flag correction, then she was at least 300!

"—Three hundred my ass!?!"

Boom!

A heavy punch wrapped in fierce wind slammed solidly into Torina's stomach. Her mouth flew open and her eyes went wide, like a heroine getting brutally beaten in an R-18 doujin. Her body bent into a bow, and her ribs and spine crackled apart—

Crack!!

Her body shattered into ice and dispersed. The exploding frost mist coated Glairel's face in a layer of white, successfully freezing its eyes shut. Torina flashed out from behind the frost and drove her blade down at the weak point on its back with all her strength—

"ROOOOAR!!!!!!!!"

But second-phase Glairel reacted even faster. It spun and swept out a kick, sending Torina flying like a sandbag—

But that was still a decoy!

The body it kicked apart turned into electric current and vanished. The real Torina appeared within a flash of lightning and thrust out a sword wrapped in thunder!

And yet the one who got blasted away was still her.

Glairel smacked her flying with one slap. Even though her ice shield and quality gear blocked most of the damage, her Office Drone gauge still dropped by a chunk!

(This bastard! The startup on its second-phase attacks is way too damn short!?)

Every punch and kick was so fast it was practically instant. By the time she reacted, she'd already been hit. This was even stronger than in the original story!

(If I keep fighting up close, I'm dead. Go ranged!)

With that thought, Torina unleashed the ultimate move she was best at—

"ᚦᚨᚺᚻᛜᛝ—Ice-Thunder Spear!!!"

Frozen lightning shot forward like wildly overgrown branches and struck the chest of the lunging Glairel head-on. Its solid pectorals were instantly frostbitten, then ravaged by a massive electric current. Its steps halted for a moment.

But that was all.

It shook its hand and flung off the paralyzing current clinging to its body. The moment Torina saw that, she swung her sword like a conductor's baton. One final bolt of ice-thunder attacked the weak point from its blind spot behind it.

But it slapped backward with one hand and crushed the powerful ice-and-lightning spell through sheer brute force.

(Tch. Totally useless...)

Torina had expected that Ice-Thunder Spear wouldn't deal effective damage from the front. What she hadn't expected was this—

Second-phase Glairel no longer fell for sneak attacks. It wasn't tracking enemies through the five senses anymore. It was using instinct.

In the original, this boss never had a "second phase is immune to sneak attacks" setting.

Glairel plunged its hand into the ground, then violently heaved upward. Most of the underground cavern floor was ripped open. Shockwaves and flying rocks forced Torina to retreat at full speed.

As she barely kept circling around it, her mind spun just as fast.

Think. Come on, think. How exactly did the boss fight go in the original again?

(The teammates wore down the boss in waves. With buffs on it, the boss had less HP but hit harder and harder. Then the tank and vice-captain forced a stall. The captain used that opening to charge a stronger lightning finisher and paralyzed it. Then everyone went down, and right before the paralysis wore off, the protagonist stole the kill...)

A lightning finisher...

(...No choice. I'll have to gamble!)

"ᚷᚩᛗᛇ！ᛇᚩᚩ!"

While chanting runes, she yanked off her gauzy shawl. It immediately flew toward Glairel and wrapped around it. At the same time, she stabbed her sword into the ground and used the Water Rune skill, Water Mire, to turn the floor into a swamp!

The slick mud made it hard for Glairel to keep its footing. The shawl also smothered its face. Torina seized the chance and cast!

If she wanted to paralyze Glairel, she needed the strongest lightning ultimate she currently knew!

High-level rune spells required drawing runes by hand or through another medium. As your power and proficiency increased, they could be simplified into chanting. With even more mastery, they could become instant cast without chanting.

The move Torina planned to use wasn't mastered enough for chanting or instant cast yet. Drawing the runes by hand or sword was a necessary step!

"ᚠᚩᚠᛏᚣᚣᛠ！ᛊᛈ！ᚱ..."

Her fingers traced rune after rune in the air. They floated upward and formed a circle, and faint lightning flickered at the center—

"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR!!!!!!!!!"

Glairel tore apart the shawl, blasted away the mud, dug up a huge boulder with its bare hands, and hurled it at her!

Torina jolted in shock and hurriedly broke off the spell to dodge. Then it leaped through the air in the exact same pose as the classic crow-sits-on-a-plane meme, and its descending heavy punch nearly smashed her into Modern Art ver.3!

(No good. I can't find any window to cast at all!)

It was as if Glairel had sensed her intentions. It kept pressing in and attacking at point-blank range! She had no choice but to keep firing defensive spells in succession. Both hands were fully occupied, and she couldn't spare the time for her ultimate!

If this kept going, with her scrambling around like this—

"...Hm?"

At that critical moment, she suddenly felt her thoughts clear up.

She sensed something. Something had loosened. Something had become clear.

And in her skill list, beneath Office Drone Never Dies from Overtime, a previously censored skill suddenly revealed itself.

A new skill awakened now!?

Her spirits shot up. Just as she thought—her reincarnator cheat wasn't only a damage-negating shield! Quick, what was the new skill called!?

~~~~~~~~

Office Drone's Flailing Panic

Faced with endless work, an office drone wishes they could type with both hands and both feet at once

~~~~~~~~

"Are you screwing with me!???"

Torina had no idea who she was yelling that soul-deep complaint at.

"...Roar?"

Glairel tilted its head in confusion at the sudden outburst.

"I'm not complaining about you! Keep fighting!"

"?"

"..."

"..."

"No, wait, wait! Not telling you to keep fighting—"

"ROOOOAAARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!"

Glairel started wildly windmilling its turtle-style king punches with a bang-clang-thud, fully committed to the creed that all martial arts bow before speed. Torina could only keep dodging in panic, dodging, dodging—

Then she suddenly realized her body felt lighter.

Or rather... her legs had suddenly become more nimble?

Her dodges, her step-ins, her footwork—every movement of her lower body felt incredibly light. The ground no longer felt like ground. Instead, the shoes on her feet felt like the thing restricting her movement.

It felt like...

...her legs had become as dexterous as hands.

A powerful urge suddenly rose in her.

She wanted to try something extremely bold—

The instant Glairel threw both fists, she suddenly leaped high into the air. Even without rune support, she jumped far higher than usual. The heavy punches brushed past the soles of her shoes. The force of the wind shredded them apart, but didn't hurt her feet.

Using that momentum, she steadied her balance and, like qinggong from a wuxia novel, stepped on the fist it had thrown out with her right foot and jumped again in midair—

Then planted her left foot firmly on Glairel's face!

The young lady's slender, delicate foot stepped onto the monster's forehead, rough as stone.

Both of them froze.

At that moment, time itself seemed to stop.

The monster's mouth twitched in a daze, and in human speech it uttered two words—

"......Pure bliss."

"'Pure bliss' my ass!?"

"!!"

It suddenly snapped back to its senses, grabbed Torina by the calf, and hurled her away. But this time, Torina planted both hands on the ground and landed steadily!

And to her shock, she realized—

Not only had her legs become as flexible as arms, her arms had also gained the stable support of legs.

Her feet could be used like hands.

Her hands could be used like feet.

Even after a lifetime of reading novels in her previous life, this was the first time she'd ever seen a skill this absurdly trollish.