Chapter 24: Is it funny to get strung up and beaten by a straw demon?

Seeing Master Chloe, poisoned by the mushrooms, swatted away by the straw demon, little Charlotte couldn’t help but gape in astonishment.

As expected, Master Chloe was completely unreliable.

Now, she was the only one left who could fight this giant, and although she still didn’t understand why she herself wasn’t showing any symptoms of being poisoned, it was clear that she absolutely wouldn’t be beaten into a state of no return before she could count to ten like Master Chloe.

Without mourning Chloe’s defeat for a single moment, the one who rushed to the battlefield immediately was—Chloe’s chief disciple, Charlotte!

Little Charlotte nimbly mounted her broom and flew quickly toward the straw demon.

Her movements were quite agile. After dodging a few of the straw demon’s attacks, she successfully circled around to its back and hurled a Fireball spell at its nape.

“I really don’t know what Master was thinking! This thing is all straw, wouldn’t Fire magic just burn it all up?”

However, after hitting the straw demon’s nape, the Fireball did not burst into the expected raging flames. Instead, it was reflected by something strange.

“Eh?” Seeing this, little Charlotte was utterly stunned, momentarily forgetting to dodge.

By the time she snapped out of it, the reflected Fireball had already flown into her face.

“Ah—”

Little Charlotte was blasted away by the Fireball she herself had thrown and crashed heavily under a nearby tree.

Thankfully, she felt absolutely no pain right now, but the straw demon was roaring and thrashing around in pain.

And so, little Charlotte, injured but fully conscious, seized the opportunity to use Holy Magic on herself, healing her injuries. She then mounted her broomstick and flew up into the sky, distancing herself from the straw demon and observing its every move from above.

“What the hell? My Fireball was reflected?”

“It hurts… it hurts…” The straw demon looked up at little Charlotte flying in the sky and raised its thick arm, aiming in her direction.

Instantly, countless pieces of straw shot out from its arm. Like a torrential downpour of pear blossoms, they flew densely toward little Charlotte.

“Eh? This thing knows that move?”

Looking at the dense straw attack, little Charlotte was about to evade, but then she suddenly noticed that all the straw seemed to have a slightly left-leaning trajectory.

And so, little Charlotte stopped and stayed perfectly still in mid-air, while the incoming straw attacks whistled right past her left side.

Seeing that the straw failed to knock little Charlotte down, the straw demon increased its firepower, extending both arms and unleashing its full attack in her direction.

However, the straw shooting from its other arm also whistled past little Charlotte’s right side.

Little Charlotte didn’t even need to move. The straw, as if seeing a ghost, all grazed past her.

This feeling of attacking with all its might and still hitting no one was quite similar to Master Chloe earlier.

‘Could it be that the negative buff I got from drinking the mushroom porridge was also absorbed by this thing, just like the pain?’

‘No wonder this thing hasn’t hit me after fighting for so long.’

Thinking this, little Charlotte snapped her fingers. Instantly, flames erupted from all directions, quickly incinerating the surrounding straw.

Clearly, the straw could be burned.

However, as the flames burned their way to the straw demon’s arm, they were suddenly repelled by a black barrier, scattering and falling to the ground.

That was the same barrier that had reflected the Fireball little Charlotte had thrown earlier.

With that troublesome barrier present, no magic attack could penetrate it.

Little Charlotte grew anxious.

Although neither she nor the straw demon could defeat the other, she couldn’t allow this thing to continue wreaking havoc. She had to find a way to eliminate it quickly.

But how could she possibly bypass its tricky barrier?

At this thought, little Charlotte’s eyes suddenly lit up, as if she had found the key clue.

‘Since I can’t defeat it from the outside, why not attack it from the inside?’

The straw demon absorbed not only her pain but also the negative buffs on her body.

‘So, what kind of debilitating debuff would be absolutely fatal to it?’

The answer was obviously, temperature.

If she could make her own body temperature spike, that thing might just ignite itself.

Thinking this, little Charlotte steered her broomstick, quickly flying past the straw demon and heading toward the bonfire where she and Master Chloe cooked their porridge.

“I remember Master secretly bought two bottles of high-proof liquor this morning. They should be in this backpack.”

Little Charlotte opened the backpack beside the bonfire and, after rummaging through it, indeed found Chloe’s prized two bottles of liquor.

“Master, your disciple will enjoy your liquor first. No need to thank me!”

Without further ado, little Charlotte pulled the corks out of the bottles on the spot and started chugging them down, chug chug chug.

In no time, she had finished the entire first bottle.

However, she didn’t seem satisfied with just one, so she opened the second bottle and continued to chug it down.

Because all the sensation of pain had been transferred to the straw demon, even though little Charlotte was underage, she felt absolutely no discomfort from drinking the liquor.

The two bottles were as easy for her as drinking cola.

The two bottles quickly went down.

Little Charlotte couldn’t help but let out a drunken burp.

Looking up, she saw the straw demon stumbling, staggering towards little Charlotte like a common drunkard.

But before it could take a few steps, it fell to the ground with a thud.

“So hot… so hot… I’m going to catch fire…”

The straw demon let out a mournful cry of pain.

In no time at all, flames erupted from inside its body. The fire grew bigger and bigger, eventually completely engulfing its entire body.

And the black barrier, as its body was consumed by flames, completely disintegrated and collapsed.

It was time to deliver the final blow.

Little Charlotte raised her right hand, and a massive Fireball materialized in her palm.

“Thanks to you absorbing all the pain from my body, I was able to study magic without worry. I probably won’t forget you for the rest of my life!”

After speaking words of gratitude to the straw demon, little Charlotte hurled the Fireball in her palm at the demon’s burning body.

Instantly, the Fireball exploded with unprecedented intensity, utterly blasting the straw demon’s body into ashes.

After successfully eliminating the troublesome creature, little Charlotte let out a sigh of relief.

But then, her face suddenly turned ashen.

Without the straw demon to absorb the damage for her, all the pain she should have felt immediately rushed back into her body.

The bowl of trippy mushroom porridge from earlier, combined with the two bottles of hard liquor she had just chugged, was now churning violently in little Charlotte’s stomach.

“Not good…”

Unable to hold it in, little Charlotte immediately threw up on the spot, her vomit spewing onto the ground like a rainbow.

“Ugh!”

Seeing this, Yukina, sitting on the sofa, couldn’t help but look disgusted.

“Brother, you’re disgusting! Don’t let me see this!”