32. Totomaru vs. Momonji

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Five months later, in February, year X779…

Momonji.

At a glance, you would assume a meer breeze would kill him. He was a small, skinny elderly man whose ribs were visible through the torn rags he was wearing. He had to use a staff to get around, and his eyebrows were bushy enough to obscure his vision.

But that was a mirage.

What he truly looked like was a large, muscular man with tanned skin, a bald head, and a pot belly. He commonly wore a set of large prayer beads around his neck with a baggy set of orange pants and sandals. The staff he used to walk around with was actually a giant kanabo. It was obvious that he used to be a monk, and apparently, his old monastery practised a dogma that meant no one was supposed to see their real appearance.

Didn't mean much when you were a notorious drunk and forgot to keep the mirage up.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's why he got excommunicated.

Still, his drunkenness aside plenty of people respected his raw strength and sneaky magic style. When you compare him to someone like Totomaru who was half his height and looked to have no muscle on him at all, your immediate thought would be that if the two fought Momonji would win.

It was this ignorance I was taking advantage of.

"Place your bets! Place your bets! Totomaru the Hot-Footed Rookie vs Momonji of the Illusionary Heat Wave!"

We have been here for barely seven months, and while our record of speedily and successfully accomplishing jobs was something that made us notable, it was not something that gave people confidence in our strength.

Being the reasonable person I am, I decided to take advantage of this and steal as much money from the people watching as I could.

Most people were betting high on Momonji, a wizard who has held his position on the Elemental Four for over ten years now. So in retaliation, I bet even higher, 1,000,000 J to be exact. Add in the liquid courage that I may or may not have been selling off to the side with the help of Giles, the bartender, and people opened up their wallets pretty easily thinking they could make some easy money off me.

By this end, Totomaru and I stand to make over 200,000,000 J!

Suckers! The whole lot of them!

This wasn't the only time I've tried to steal a lot of money from these idiots, nor the first time involving liquor. Guilds like this usually don't care who you are or how old you are so long as you pay for whatever you want, and that involves liquor.

I had managed to complete the first retraining seal on my body, allowing me to get some of the health benefits of my demon physiology without looking like one. In short, I successfully removed the need to disguise myself with Transformation Magic.

Demons have incredibly hearty bodies, and our livers were no exception.

A thirteen-year-old challenges a bunch of adults to a drinking contest with a 500,000 J prize. Everyone in the bar ends up passed out drunk while I'm standing on top of a mountain of empty kegs still trying to get drunk.

A lot of my money back in Himura came from poker night, and the ability to weaponise a perfect memory and the ability to count cards makes it easy for me to recognise tells and bluffs. Get them drunk, and taking money from everyone is easy.

But back to the present, Totomaru and Momonji were standing on the edge of a sand pit staring each other down. It looked like they were straight across from each other, but watching Totomaru's foot slowly change position without him looking away from the "elderly man" made it clear that Momonji was already making his move.

The referee of the fight was a lanky man with green hair and an absurd-looking brownish-orange suit. This was Sol of the Land, another one of the Elemental Four. He was weird.

"Salut, ladies and gentlemen! Oui, it is I, Monsieur Sol! Today we have gathered to see if one young man is talented enough to join the illustrious Elemental Four!"

His debut made many cheer, likely with them more excited to see the fight rather than him. Still, that didn't dissuade him one bit. He proceeded to establish the rules of the fight, no serious maiming, no killing, no outside interference, while I sat on top of a series of boxes filled with salted meats that I most definitely wasn't cooking and eating from.

A series of "Non! Non! Non!"s later and the two were finally about to fight, the anticipation palpable in the air. The people here wanted to see an easy fight and earn their easy money, but finishing my impromptu steak I rocketed myself to the roof, wholly struggling to not laugh due to my knowledge of what was to come.

"Well, Sonny? Are you sure you don't want to bail out now?" Momonji said as he imitated an old man's voice.

Totomaru just yawned before crossing his arms, one hand sticking out just enough to make a "bring it" motion. He hadn't even touched the sword strapped to his waist yet, and I don't think he planned to.

"Non! Non! Non! Don't fight yet! The two of you will duke it out on my signal. Three!"

Neither of them made any obvious movements, but I could tell that Totomaru's body began to tense as he prepared to move.

"Two!"

Totomaru's eyes strayed for the first time towards what looked like a random woman in the crowd.

"One! Fight!"

Instantly, Totomaru vanished from his position and appeared next to a young woman on the edge of the crowd, just a small ways behind the old man. In his hands was what looked to be a bouquet of flowers made from pink flames. Those same pink flames release a lavender-like scent.

"Miss Adalina, when I win this match would you give me the honour of going on a date with me?"

Motherfucker!

Literally!

Adalina was a lumberjack in her early thirties who often stopped by the guild for beer. She was the definition of a Muscle Mommy, both in the fact that she was extremely muscular and a single mother to twins. And he was using the chance to flirt with her!

And from the blush on the usually stoic woman's face, it was working!

What the fuck!?

"O-Only if you win…" she said, causing him to smile from ear to ear just before disappearing again. The ground he was standing on cracked under the weight of an invisible weapon, causing the milf and those around her to stumble before complaining.

"Tsk! Where did you go?" shouted the mirage of the old man stumbling about the stage as if Totomaru had turned invisible. In truth, that was not the case. 

If Momonji had trained to be a war monk of some sort, then Totomaru had trained to become a shinobi. What he lacked in physical strength he made up for in speed and technique and anyone less than the best would truly think he became invisible.

Still, despite his swiftness he had about as much subtlety as a drunken bull.

"Shaht up, would ya!?" he said as he reappeared on the side of the ring he started at. He snapped his fingers causing a previously invisible figure to be engulfed in pale orange flames while a ring of pink flames created a border on the edge of the sand pit.

"W-What is thi-HHRG!!"

"Ahahaha! Smells like a milk-dipped mouldy sock, right?"

"This is disgusting!"

The pink flames protected the crowd from the stench, but the visceral reaction from the towering monk, who had let go of his mirage as he tried to douse the flames by rolling on the ground, was enough for the crowd to understand how pungent the flames were.

When Momonji got back to his feet he readied his kanabo and charged towards Totomaru. The ninja didn't do anything until he swung at him, causing Totomaru to do a backflip just as the ground exploded where he was standing and the ground to once again tremble from the war monk's strength.

The dual-toned-haired man landed on something in mid-air. It looked as if he was standing on nothing and was just floating there with his arms crossed and once again yawning.

"You really are slow, you know that?"

"Get off of me!"

The invisible figure of Momonji became real once again as the temperature of the area began to rise. The muscular man began to swing wildly at the shinobi standing on his head, only for Totomaru to balance around the swing easily and deftly avoiding them without losing his position on Momonji's head.

The spiked metal war club began to glow as the metal became superheated within his grasp. In response, Totomaru coated himself in a chilling blue flame. The blue fire had an opposite reaction to an ordinary flame, freezing things instead of burning.

As the monk slowly started to lose his temper in the most literal fashion, Totomaru just laughed before falling backwards and landing in a crouched position behind Momonji. Before the monk could turn around, Totomaru pressed the index and middle fingers of both hands together and shoved his hands upwards towards Momonji's behind with all of his body weight.

"Hidden Taijutsu Technique: One Thousand Years of Death!"

Everyone winced as Totomaru's attack caused the defiled monk to shoot towards the sky in pain. When he landed and recovered his rage only grew, and with it the temperature of his body. His tanned skin had begun to glow red making him look more like a beast than a man. His mouth began to foam as he turned around with the kanabo raised, only to get blasted backwards by a colourful fireball.

"Rainbow Fire!"

The hulking mass of muscle got sent into the crowd, and when the flames vanished it became apparent that the now-former member of the Elemental Four had been knocked unconscious.

It took a few seconds for the crowd to realise what happened, and when they did it was with screams of both applause and sorrow. Monsieur Sol took even longer before screaming over the crowd.

"Momonji of the Illusionary Heat Wave has been defeated with ease! Does this mean the end of something? Non! Non! Non! It is the start of a brand new career! Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to the Elemental Four Chikafuji Totomaru of the Great Flame!"

"My money!"

"How could this happen!?"

"Marry me!"

"Back off, bitch! He's mine!"

The crowd began to fight each other for various reasons while I watched from the roof of the guild hall that I escaped to. In my hands were several large bags full of money, the reason so many of the crowd were fighting.

The other portion was trying to beat Adalina in a free-for-all battle in order to "claim" the date from her. 

It wasn't a battle, though. 

She was singlehandedly knocking them all out and began to look even more dangerous than any beast, with her standing on top of a slowly growing mountain of unconscious men and women, most of whom had nothing to do with the fight, to begin with, and were dragged into it.

Judging by the drool leaving Totomaru's mouth, he was into it…

Not gonna lie, so was I.

That single image brought forth questions about myself I really didn't want to be answered at the moment.

—

"And here you are, sir, your identification card. With it, you'll be able to access the S-Class lounge at any of Phantom Lord's guild halls, as well as the S-Class request board and the rewards that come with their difficulty."

"Thank you, Giles."

The card in question was a flat, orange lacrima with an iridescent lining and Totomaru's information engraved onto it. The crystalline card's appearance was unique, with its appearance being moulded by the possessor's magic.

Every member of Phantom's S-Class got one of these so that Transformation Mages didn't try to get an S-Class quest that they would only end up dying on, as it was required to give both the request flyer and your card to the employee at the guild that would confirm that a quest has been taken.

A copy of the card is given to the staff at every branch guild, so faking one would be impossible since each card has the same matching magic signature that would automatically update once the wizard they belong to touches them or dies.

"And here's the guild's cut of the betting profits."

"Thank you, Miss Lyssa."

Giles, Totomaru, and I parted ways each of us with smiles on our faces at the rewards of the day's events.

"So, are you going to take the money straight to the bank?"

"Obviously. Are you going to take Adalina on a date, or are you going to get your first S-Class mission?"

"Ehe~ I've been waiting for this opportunity since I first saw her. No way am I letting this chance pass up! And if I get lucky, I might get an even better reward than just a date~"

"I hope you're as quick in the sheets as you are on your feet…"

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