Chapter 66: Your Name (4) |
*
The four members of Freya's party, who had escaped the prison.
Relying on the faint light from the ceiling, the four moved forward, silencing their footsteps.
Kal was in the lead.
The series of movements—holding his folding sword low, pressing his back to the wall, and checking the corner—was deft.
As he filled his lungs with clear air, free of the opium dust, life had already returned to his eyes.
“Grrr...”
Just before turning the corner.
They came face-to-face with two ghouls in the darkness.
In a single strike, the two ghouls' heads flew into the air.
“The guards aren’t that strong.”
Kal said in a whisper, shaking the bodily fluid from his sword.
Valeria, who was supporting Eli, gave Kal a thumbs-up in praise.
Freya stood guard at the rear, pistol in hand.
They proceeded, taking out the ghouls one by one.
Before long, the party made it to ground level.
At the end of a long hallway.
A door leading outside came into view.
Exit.
That hopeful word surfaced in all four of their minds.
“Alright. Now—”
It was the moment Kal, in the lead, was about to step onto the stairs.
Thump.
From above the stairs leading to the 2nd Floor.
The heavy footsteps of someone could be heard.
All four of them stopped in their tracks.
Thump— Thump—
Someone was descending with a slow, heavy rhythm.
Kal gave the party a signal with his eyes and pressed them against the wall of the stairwell.
After confirming the party was hidden in the shadows of the wall, Kal switched to a reverse grip.
The footsteps grew closer.
A shadow first fell upon the landing of the stairs.
Kal held his breath.
The moment the owner of the shadow turned the corner, Kal kicked off the wall and leaped.
The blade, infused with Fighting Aura, swung toward the shadow's neck.
It was a perfect trajectory that made even Kal himself admire it.
But just before the blade reached the neck, something glinted in the air.
Clang.
With a sharp, unpleasant grating sound, Kal's sword was deflected.
Kal belatedly identified what had repelled his sword.
'...Beetles?'
Three tiny beetles.
The three of them had formed a triangular formation in front of the giant man's neck.
The beetles' carapaces shone a dark blue under the light of the magic stone lamp.
It was these three fingernail-sized beetles that had deflected a sword infused with Fighting Aura.
It took Kal a moment to accept that fact.
“...Damn it.”
“Whew. Look at this cheeky little punk.”
The owner of the shadow fully revealed himself under the magic stone lamp.
A giant man with his left forearm densely covered in black engravings whistled from under his hood.
“I thought you were just a greenhouse flower, but you know how to pull off a surprise attack.”
Thud!
When the head of the great hammer hit the ground, the stone floor cracked like a spiderweb.
Freya realized this was the giant man Kal had mentioned before.
The giant man nonchalantly watched the beetles disappear from his neck before looking up the stairs.
“Igor. Look at these guys. This isn’t going to be easy, is it?”
“We don't have much time, Boris.”
From behind the giant man, a skinny man in a robe slowly descended.
The man wore a robe and had an unlit cigarette in his mouth.
Freya recognized at once that the skinny man was a black sorcerer.
'Igor and Boris, he said. Probably aliases.'
They were all too common aliases in the mercenary business.
If you tried to look for the Igor Boris Duo in the Mercenary Guild, hundreds of pairs with that registered name would probably pop up.
The man called Igor scanned the students from the top of the stairs, not yet descending.
His gaze stopped at the family crest engraved on Freya's cape.
“Young Lady.”
Igor opened his mouth.
“I regret what happened today. This should never have happened in the first place.”
Freya looked up at Igor, pistol in hand.
Igor descended one step.
“Let's do this. Today, the young lady simply took a wrong turn. She was just taking a walk outside the Academy and got a little lost. That's all it was.”
“...”
“Go back to your dormitory, wash up, eat, and go to class tomorrow. You can return to your peaceful daily life as if nothing happened. Then we can all be happy.”
Freya did not answer.
Instead, she only returned the question.
“Then what will happen to my seniors here?”
“Is there any reason for a young lady to care about commoners like these?”
“I knew it.”
Freya nodded her head calmly.
“I’m sorry, but I cannot accept that proposal.”
“For a noble, you don’t hesitate to drink the poison chalice.”
“It’s because I am a noble that I have an honor to protect.”
Tsk.
Boris clicked his tongue lightly and shouldered the hammer he had set down.
“Igor.”
“Yes. Go, Boris.”
The moment those words were spoken, Boris moved.
The great hammer cut through the air.
The horizontally swung hammerhead rushed forward with enough force to seemingly sweep away the entire hallway where the students stood.
In response, Kal lunged forward.
His blade, infused with Fighting Aura, narrowly deflected the hammer's trajectory.
Kwang-!
The wall the hammer grazed was gouged out like tofu.
“Oh, Fighting Aura? They teach this stuff to a mere undergraduate these days? Must make the tuition fee worth it!”
The next blow followed immediately.
Kal realized he didn't have much Fighting Aura left.
And it wasn't as if he could block that brutish great hammer over and over with a self-defense sword.
So Kal chose avoidance instead of defense.
“Get back!”
Shouting one word, Kal pushed Freya and Valeria behind him.
He then ducked and dove under the great hammer’s trajectory.
As the hammer passed over his head, his hair was ruffled by the wind.
From below, Kal's sword came up.
A diagonal upward slash infused with Fighting Aura.
It was a slashing attack aimed at Boris's side.
Boris tried to block it by holding the handle of his great hammer vertically.
But this, too, was part of Kal's plan.
'Thank goodness. His movements themselves are simple.'
Altering its trajectory, the blade passed under the handle and sliced Boris's thigh.
A stream of blood splattered on the floor.
“Oh?”
Boris's eyes widened.
“I didn't know when I was beating you up in the prison, but you actually had this kind of skill?”
With those words, Boris swung his hammer again.
At the same time.
The skinny mage Igor, behind Boris, began to recite a chant to support him.
But the moment his lips began to move.
“Ventus.”
Wind first stirred from Valeria's staff.
It was beginner wind magic.
Of course, being beginner magic, its destructive power was negligible.
However, it contained enough force to knock out an adult man if it struck his jaw while he was off guard.
The skinny mage Igor tilted his head back, dodging the wind.
But Valeria didn't care that it had missed.
Her goal was not to subdue Igor.
Igor tried to chant again.
“Dra—”
“Ventus.”
Her purpose was, to the very end, to interrupt the black sorcerer's chant.
Because no matter how high-ranking a mage was, activating magic without a chant would be a considerable burden.
Valeria aimed for this point, simply doing what she could.
“...Clever.”
Igor, having noticed her intention, praised Valeria calmly.
While Kal handled Boris and Valeria handled Igor,
Click.
In the shadows, Freya quietly checked the chamber of her revolver.
A blessed silver bullet.
The same kind of ammunition said to have assassinated a count-level noble and defeated a Rank 2 Black Sorcerer in the past.
'I have to make this shot count.'
The target was the Rank 1 Mage, Igor.
If Freya joined in after the mage was down, they could handle the giant man.
Freya steadied her breath.
After confirming once more that Igor's gaze was focused on Valeria.
She quietly aimed for the center of his chest.
And the moment Valeria's wind cut off Igor's chant.
Bang!
The gunshot tore through the hallway.
A silver bullet flew in a straight line and lodged itself in Igor's chest.
Struck squarely in the chest, Igor's upper body bent back sharply.
“Igor!”
The fact that Igor was hit flustered Boris, the giant with the hammer.
Kal did not miss that opening.
Stab!
His sword pierced the giant man's abdomen.
It was over.
A light of conviction flashed in Freya's glacier-colored eyes.
At least, that's what she thought, until Igor, who was staggering as if about to fall, slowly raised his head.
“Huh?”
“Hngh... as expected, it's a pain you can never get used to, no matter how many times you take it.”
Igor spat the cigarette he was holding in his mouth onto the floor.
His chest, where the silver bullet had hit, was perfectly clean.
Looking closely, the bullet seemed to have been stopped by something in front of his chest.
The skinny mage picked up the silver bullet that was stopped at his chest.
“...You use expensive ammunition.”
From inside Igor's robe, black things poured out.
They were beetles.
The same fingernail-sized black beetles that had blocked the attack on Boris's neck.
Those beetles were densely covering Igor's chest.
Dozens of beetles that had touched the silver sizzled and burned away.
And that was all.
Igor himself was completely unharmed.
Igor dropped the silver bullet to the floor.
“The plan itself was excellent. For students who've never experienced actual combat, it was incredibly well-coordinated.”
Igor clapped slowly, deliberately.
“But in the end, it's still at a student's level.”
Stop.
His clapping stopped.
“I don't know where a young lady like you got such an expensive bullet, but perhaps because you are a young lady... having an item and knowing how to use it are two different things.”
Crunch.
The mage ground the silver bullet rolling on the floor under his heel.
“How many mages do you think this bullet has killed until now? So, do you really think mages wouldn't have prepared a countermeasure for it, Young Lady?”
The moment she heard those words, a certain fact flashed through Freya's mind.
The past.
The time when Erika had told the story of defeating a black sorcerer with a silver bullet.
At that time, Freya had held a certain doubt.
Why had she made Otto and Wangcho fire the gun, and not Yulian?
Why hadn't she pulled the trigger while the black sorcerer was chanting?
Igor was giving her the answer.
“You should have at least aimed for the moment the mage exhausted their magical power, or right after they cast a spell when the backlash hits. If not that, then you could have infused the bullet with Fighting Aura.”
A silver bullet has no effect unless it makes direct contact.
Mages, who knew this well, would naturally have a countermeasure prepared for it.
In Igor's case, he substituted with the sacrifice of the beetles under his control.
“Your understanding of the bullet you were using was too lacking, Young Lady.”
Just then, a strange sound came from Boris, who was holding the hammer.
Szzzzzz.
It was a sound coming from Boris's abdomen, which Kal had just pierced.
Freya turned her head.
Kal's sword, infused with Fighting Aura, was clearly piercing Boris's stomach.
It was certain, seeing the tip of the sword protruding from his back.
But with the blade still embedded, Boris's flesh was writhing.
Soon, the flesh welled up and pushed the blade out.
The hole vanished, and the skin sealed itself.
Kal re-gripped the pushed-out sword and took two steps back.
“I’ve never heard of an enhancement procedure like this.”
Boris let out a sneer.
He then tapped the tattoo on his left arm with his finger.
“Enhancement procedure, kiddo? When did I ever say it was that?”
Boris's body began to change.
Scales sprouted on his skin.
His arms thickened, and his fingernails split, becoming as sharp as claws.
A tail sprouted from his back.
“I wonder if you've heard of the Chimera Procedure.”
His vertically slit pupils reflected the light of the magic stone lamp.
Valeria reacted instantly.
She pushed Eli toward the wall and aimed her staff at the lizard-like giant.
“Prutinis”
The chant was completed on her lips.
But the magic did not form.
The magical power flowed, the runic formula was correct, and the conditions were met.
She even had the symbol.
And yet, no miracle formed at the tip of her staff.
Why?
I met all the conditions and symbols—
While Valeria was flustered, Boris's tail swung horizontally.
Toward Valeria and Eli.
Kal reflexively jumped in front of the two.
He tried to block it with his sword held vertically, but the mass of the scale-covered tail was beyond what the top student of the Department of Swordsmanship could handle.
Thwack.
With a dull sound, Kal's body was sent airborne.
After spinning once in the air, Kal slammed back-first into the wall at the end of the hallway.
“Senior Kal!”
Freya screamed.
The hand holding Valeria's staff trembled.
'Why isn't it working? How?'
A hoarse voice pierced through Valeria's pale consciousness.
“Didn't I tell you? It's just a student's level.”
Valeria turned her head.
Igor was slowly wagging his finger.
Like a metronome, slowly from side to side.
“To a mage, knowledge is power. At your level of mastery, you wouldn't even be able to grasp what conditions I changed.”
Valeria's face hardened.
Dispel.
A technique to nullify an opponent's magic by secretly changing the conditions and symbols they are unaware of.
She knew it in theory.
But she had never encountered it in a student-level duel, let alone experienced it in actual combat.
“When facing a higher-rank mage, hiding your runic formula should be your priority. Do they not teach this in the High School Division anymore?”
Igor took out a new, unlit cigarette and put it in his mouth.
“Wind and ice are your specialties, I see. Easy to figure out. You spammed your magic too much. If everything could be solved by just blocking chants with beginner magic, why would mages bother to learn intermediate magic?”
In a fight between mages, a single, decisive blow is what matters.
The more you use magic, the more your favored conditions and symbols get exposed.
For mages, for whom the gap in knowledge is a weapon, the exposure of their specialty in a prolonged fight became a fatal weakness.
Therefore, mages only bring out their true skills when they are certain they can land a fatal blow on their opponent.
Like Igor right now.
“Since you overexerted yourself trying to cast magic, you should be getting dizzy by now.”
Just as Igor said, Valeria staggered.
It was mana sickness.
On top of spamming beginner magic that partially broke the earlier chant, there was also the backlash from the final spell's misfire.
No matter if it was beginner magic, if spammed to this extent, there was no way she'd have any magical power left.
“It seems you've never been in a proper actual combat before.”
“What's so great about it that you have to explain every little thing, Igor? Did you awaken a passion for education after getting kicked out?”
The lizard man, who had been quietly listening to Igor, grumbled as he picked his ear.
Igor faltered for a moment.
“...Still, when I stood on the podium, I was sincere.”
“I'm sure you were.”
“You wouldn't know. That feeling when a talented student understands my class. That's something you can never get a thrill of in this line of work.”
“The guy who ran away because he couldn't stand seeing his own disciples surpass him sure talks a lot.”
Grit.
Igor glared at Boris, grinding his teeth.
The lizard man just sneered and raised his middle finger.
“Shut up and let's get this over with. It looks like the fire from upstairs is about to reach us. What are you going to do about the young lady?”
“We won't deviate too much from the original plan.”
The hooded mage's gaze turned to Freya.
“We'll dispose of the rest. As for the young lady... it seems persuasion is impossible, so we'll perform a memory erasure at the hideout and send her back.”
“How troublesome.”
“It'll be a headache if the Baron hunts us to the ends of the earth.”
“True enough.”
Boris lifted his great hammer vertically.
His target was Kal, collapsed against the wall.
Kal's breathing was ragged.
Every time he inhaled, a cracking sound leaked from deep within his chest.
Beside Kal was the girl who had been cowering until just now.
“Kal! Try to breathe! What do I do!”
“Hhup... keuk...”
“His breath sounds... what do I do... What did Director Schun say to do in a time like this...”
Eli, who had been too overcome by the opium dust to even move, had at some point crawled over to Kal's side.
Eli, tapping her head, was desperately trying to remember something.
Soon, her hands began to do something on Kal's chest.
And Freya stood in front of Boris, as if to protect the two.
“I won't let you.”
Glacier-colored magical power bloomed from the tip of Freya's gun muzzle.
Boris grimaced in annoyance and looked back at Igor.
“Igor. Can't you Dispel this too? This is getting tiring.”
Igor shook his head.
“It's Arcane Magic.”
“So?”
“Dispel is impossible. She must be using a condition that only someone who can inherit that family's blood can read. It wouldn't be called Arcane Magic for nothing.”
“Fuck. Nobles are a pain in the ass wherever you go.”
Leaning the great hammer on his shoulder, Boris looked down at Freya.
The lizard's vertically slit pupils met Freya's glacier-colored eyes.
“Let me ask just one thing, Young Lady.”
The hostility was gone from Boris's voice.
“Is your relationship worth risking your life to protect? I've never seen such a strong bond between school seniors and juniors.”
To this, Freya answered without hesitation.
“You don't protect something because it's precious.”
One person flashed through her mind.
The one person she admired endlessly, the one who sowed goodwill in this dark world.
His unconditional goodwill saved countless connections, and it even saved Freya.
The girl who had grown up watching that miracle up close,
“It becomes precious because you protect it. A connection is something that will never even begin unless someone reaches out their hand first.”
She wanted to follow that back forever.
That was why she couldn't back down even at this moment.
Because if it were the him she knew, he would surely have done the same.
“...”
Boris's eyebrows rose.
A short silence filled the hallway.
Haaa...
The lizard's deep sigh echoed in the hallway.
“As long as they're still breathing, the elders will take care of it, I guess.”
He lifted his great hammer again.
As if in response, Freya also placed her finger on the trigger.
It was then.
The voice Freya had longed to hear echoed through the hallway.
“I agree with those words, Young Lady Freya.”
“Ignus tacto.”
A low chant, sounding as if it were interrupting the nostalgic voice.
Whoosh!
A crimson stream of fire descended the 2nd-floor stairs and engulfed Igor and Boris.
The entire hallway grew hot with the heat.
Freya's cheeks became hot.
But despite being exposed to the heat from so close, none of the students were burned.
It was impossible to fathom how delicate the runic formula and what exception handling had been applied to this flame.
“Igor!”
“I know.”
Beetles poured out from the walls and ceiling.
Hundreds of beetles formed a wall in front of Igor and Boris.
The beetles burned away, absorbing the flames.
Sssssss—
The smell of burning beetles filled the hallway.
The flames subsided.
But the price was great.
“Tsk... Consumed half of them.”
More than half of Igor's beetles had been reduced to ash.
He stared at the end of the hallway with hollow eyes.
“Instead of confirming my rank and showing off his own magic, he used the existing fire. An excellent judgment.”
“What are you admiring every little thing for, you bastard.”
“Be careful, Boris. That one is accustomed to battles between mages. Even if my rank is higher, a moment of carelessness could get me caught off guard.”
Sometime during all this, the door to the exit had opened.
From beyond it, men in black combat uniforms were walking in.
The crest of the Ironclad was engraved on their chests.
Their movements were perfectly coordinated as they dispersed, wearing gas masks.
The sound of military boots on the stone floor echoed at regular intervals.
And from the front of those operatives, two men walked out side by side.
One person was holding a large magic tool connected to a nozzle, which almost looked like a gun.
Captain Shen.
“We came on a call from the Nihilrit Family, Young Lady.”
The captain of the Ironclad gave Freya a light salute and then took a step to the side.
And the man standing next to him took a step forward.
A man in a formal wear and fedora, unsuited for a battlefield.
The brim of the hat covered the upper part of his face, leaving only his jawline and lips visible.
Valeria's eyes widened.
“Director... Schun?”
The man in the fedora—Director Schun—lightly lifted the brim of his hat.
“My apologies for being late. The fairies wouldn't open their mouths, so it took a long time to coax them.”
Freya felt as if Director Schun had just winked at her from under the deeply pressed brim of his hat.
