T/N: Beastkin = Beastmen, they have the same interpretation, I will use the first one that comes to my mind.
Nana and Beren, the bird-type beastkin from Fornacis, each destroyed one cube and shared credit for another, counting as two eliminations.
With one cube remaining, Nana and Beren were at a standstill, glaring at each other.
Both waiting rooms were excited watching the two of them.
"Even with magic forbidden, it's amazing that Nana can keep up ."
"If magic were allowed, big sis Nana would win easily though. But I was surprised when those wings suddenly appeared."
"It's probably the [Bird Transformation] skill that some bird-type beastmen rarely possess, or something similar."
Wanting to conserve energy for her turn, Leah recalled knowledge from books about various races she borrowed from Tatsuro when she had free time.
"Having wings and being able to fly is nice. But that Beren person became more beast-like. That might be bad."
"Yeah, with feathers growing on hands and the face changing from human to bird-like. But I think Ai would be cute even transformed into a beast."
"Hehe, thanks. Tatsuro would surely look cool too."
While these two were being their usual selves, the Fornacis side was in an uproar.
"Hey hey, that little one. Isn't she a devil race!?"
"They keep surprising us. I thought that girl with the scary eyes looked dangerous, but they had quite the hidden card up their sleeve."
"And that's not just any devil. With that intimidating presence reaching all the way here, she must be quite high-ranking. Wonder where they scouted her from."
"Well, Beren's not without a chance though. No matter how blessed their race is, that one's still young. Could even be just a few years old."
"Ugh. If she's really that strong after just a few years, it makes all our effort seem pointless."
In order, Nicolas, Beverly, Aurelie, Mirowsz, and Ida were discussing this when Nana and Beren began moving simultaneously.
Confirming the fourth cube hadn't appeared yet, they faced each other at extremely close range.
At this point, Nana had transformed to [Adult Form] to minimize her target, while Beren returned to normal form since flying with wings was disadvantageous in ground combat.
Building an odd trust that neither would kill the other even going all out, they attacked with enough force to slam the opponent to the ground, dodging and counterattacking without pause to breathe.
Then that moment arrived.
The cube appeared at the very edge of the circular stage, on Nana's right and Beren's left.
They spotted it simultaneously again.
Nana suppressed her urge to rush, wanting to land at least one hit before heading there.
If she didn't, she couldn't even predict the outcome herself.
Beren seemed to feel the same, trying to create even a moment's distraction while holding back from rushing straight there, unleashing full-force attacks.
They remained locked in combat for a while, both aware of the cube but neither able to break away.
But Nana grew impatient first and executed her third Rapid Acceleration of the battle.
Beren had been hurt twice by Nana's Rapid Acceleration before.
But after seeing it twice, she wasn't foolish enough to fall for it again.
Matching Nana's suddenly accelerated hand movement, she deflected the attack with her fan while spinning to the side, leaping one step ahead of Nana.
She turned her back to Nana heading toward the cube, but had to stop and turn around to face an attack coming from behind.
It was Nana's dragon fang wrapped in dragon power extended like a spear, which could have pierced her back if ignored.
And so Nana reset back to close-quarters combat.
But unlike before, the cube was now in front of Nana and behind Beren, changing the situation.
This meant Beren had the advantage in terms of distance.
But then misfortune struck Nana.
From forcing too much dragon power into the dragon fang she'd been holding, several small cracks had formed.
When Beren deflected several attacks, it shattered to pieces.
Even though made from dragon materials, it was still only level 1 material, and Leah's Quality Improvement had prioritized armor so hadn't gotten around to this.
Of course, Beren wouldn't miss such a perfect opportunity, mercilessly folding her iron fan to strike Nana's head with its side.
(No time to take anything from the Item Box. Then—)
If she had no weapon, she could use her own claws.
Nana transformed to [True Form] and scratched with dragon power flowing through her sharp, blackened claws.
The claws were much sturdier than Nana expected, and being part of her body, there was no worry about them breaking.
She deflected Beren's folded fan aimed at her head with her right claw before it could strike, then lunged with her left claw.
Though the words escaping her mouth lacked tension, each strike carried power that couldn't be ignored.
So Beren had no choice but to block them all with fans in both hands.
[Skill: Scratch Lv.1 acquired.]
"Nya? —Nyanyanyanya!"
(The attacks suddenly got heavier. What happened?)
To Beren and her companions, devils were above all prideful beings.
So seeing Nana with a dragon fang, they mistakenly assumed she had sword skills, never dreaming she possessed beast-type skills for fighting like an animal.
Therefore they thought it was just a desperate attack, a final struggle.
But Nana's moves defied expectations, becoming proper attacks with bestial vigor.
And that misunderstanding now brought Nana good fortune.
The claw tip slightly cut Beren's right thumb holding the fan.
Though she didn't drop the fan, her grip loosened slightly.
Noticing this sharply, Nana kicked up with her foot to knock the fan far away, then used Rapid Acceleration to pass by Beren's now weaponless right side.
Then she ran full speed toward the cube.
She dodged the pursuing energy slashes by moving in zigzags.
The cube was right before her now.
But Beren caught up and, holding what appeared to be a spare fan different from before in her right hand, unleashed a direct attack with both arms filled with beautifully visualized pink energy that forced Nana to turn around.
Taking it head-on would likely knock Nana unconscious before she could destroy the cube.
So Nana caught it with the claws of both hands as she turned.
Catching that attack with claws seemed unwise, as the impact broke the tips of three middle claws.
But Nana still managed to block it.
At this point, the cube was right behind Nana. This text is hosted at novel※fire.net
But she couldn't move either hand receiving the still-pressing fan, couldn't move her braced feet, couldn't use magic.
"I'm not finished yet!"
Beren put strength into both hands, intending to turn things around from here.
However, Nana grinned at that. I am the victor.
"No. This is the end."
Even with hands and feet immobilized, Nana had another attack method unavailable to normal humans.
Nana revealed the thin black arrow-shaped tail hidden in her kimono and used it like a whip to strike and destroy the cube.
[And that's the end of the match! The winner is Nana! This adds one victory point to "Team Tatsuro"! Clap clap, boom boom, poof poof!]
"The victory is mine."
With that, Beren relaxed her strength and lowered her hands still holding the fans.
Seeing this, Nana returned to child form and started heading back to Tatsuro and the others.
But she caught sight of blood from Beren's thumb dripping onto the ground.
Nana held out her right hand, already healed by her own life magic, to Beren.
Thinking it was for a handshake, Beren wiped off the blood before grasping Nana's small hand.
"I'll specially heal you."
"Well then, goodbye~"
"Ah, hey. What do you—huh, my thumb wound..."
Though it meant revealing some of her abilities, Nana treated Beren's finger with life magic as thanks for an interesting match.
But not intending to allow further questioning, Nana ran back to the waiting room where Tatsuro and the others were.
"Yeah, I was watching. Winning against a pure physical fighter without using any magic is amazing."
As soon as Nana opened the waiting room door, she jumped at Tatsuro to get her head patted, then jumped to hug Ai and get her head patted there too.
The intensity from the recent match was completely forgotten, Nana had a beaming smile.
"Now we need six more wins. Ugh... I hope it ends before my turn."
"What're you being so negative for? Leah's an important part of our fighting force, so it's not good to start out feeling weak~"
"Magic is forbidden but there's no rule against using items, so it's not necessarily impossible."
"Like that boom one! Or that flash one! You can't tell what's coming just by looks, so there are lots of possibilities!"
During the rule-making, they deliberately avoided mentioning it while talking with Beverly, but Tatsuro could sense they also wanted to use some kind of items.
So he thought their female life mage and male dispel mage would probably use something.
Therefore, they intended to let Leah use items freely when her turn came.
If so, even Leah who still looked anxious shouldn't be at a disadvantage.
Thinking this, Tatsuro turned his gaze to Nana, who was now getting her head patted by Cardina and Jeanne.
While Tatsuro's group was spending time .
On the Fornacis side, Beren was telling everyone about getting healed earlier.
"Heh. Healing you was pretty nice of them. Lucky you, Beren."
"What are you being so easygoing about, Nicolas? Don't you understand what this means?"
"Huh? What do you mean, Ms. Beverly?"
"She didn't use recovery skills during our fight even when her claws broke, but used them after it ended, meaning she's magic-type. ...No, to be precise, that was life magic. It happened so fast I didn't notice at first, but thinking back, that healing sensation was similar to it."
"Life magic... So you're saying that little Miss might be a magic class despite moving that well?"
Nicolas said "No way" looking totally unconvinced, but the others were thinking about it very seriously.
"Or maybe it's a rare class that can do both?"
"Could be, Dija. And if all their members are like that, it would explain how they could keep up with us in speed despite their small numbers."
"No wonder they had few people. If each of them can do the work of several of us that would make sense indeed."
"But if that's true, why would they suggest separating magic and combat classes in the first place?"
Fish-person Dija, middle-aged elf Aurelie, and giant Mirowsz nodded at this while Dana, who had been right beside Beverly during the rule discussion, recalled the content.
"Dana's right, if they all could use both it would be strange for them to bring that up."
"True. If she had used life magic during our fight, she could have at least messed with my condition when she touched me. If that happened, I would have lost immediately."
"So maybe they have members who are extremely weak in either magic or combat."
"Really... Why did we have to run into such a mysterious party during this big money-making chance?"
Listening to fish-person Ida, bird-type beastman Beren, and battle elf Codelros talk, Beverly sighed heavily saying this.
And everyone showed wry smiles, apparently feeling the same way.