The moment I became capable of forming a complete aura, I finally had the upper hand over Monia. At least in terms of raw power.
It was my trump card, something that turned the tide when I hadn’t been able to win at anything before.
What’s more, even now, despite being pushed back, she was still avoiding inflicting fatal wounds on me.
“Hoo…”
But this was a problem.
Even after widening the gap this much, I still couldn’t bring her down.
So what if I had more power and output? She was dealing with it all through sheer fundamentals and technique.
If this dragged into a war of attrition, I could probably win. But that would be a problem in itself.
Olga Hermod isn’t stupid.
This entire test is taking place inside her magic. There’s no way she isn’t aware of what’s happening. Maybe she hasn’t heard everything we said, but if things get too serious, she’ll intervene.
That means I have to end this before it comes to that.
At the very least, if I want to talk to Monia, I need to flip the impression she has of me.
“…You really don’t make things easy.”
So there’s only one way.
Give flesh to take bone. Go, give bone to take bone.
I charged straight at Monia, gasping for breath, without dodging the spear she thrust toward me.
No, I even moved to make sure the tip of the spear aimed for a vital spot.
It was going to hurt if it landed. But I was prepared for that.
“Urgh?!”
And sure enough, Monia adjusted the tip of her spear again.
That relentless obsession of hers…it was exhausting.
She moved the spear just enough to avoid my vitals, like she desperately wanted me to suffer more, not die quickly.
Crack!
A horrible sound rang out.
A foreign sensation tore through my flesh, followed by a burning pain, like fire searing my insides.
Agony spread outward from the spear that had pierced through my torso, as if liquid pain was flowing and expanding within me.
“Hoo…”
I grabbed hold of the spear embedded in my body.
I used her moment of shock.
Slice!
I lightly swung my sword.
Against an unarmed opponent, there was no need to channel aura. A sword was already deadly on its own.
“See? I won. I’m not as weak as you thought I was.”
“Guh… khhk…!”
Monia stumbled back, clutching her neck.
I was in pain too, having been stabbed by the spear. But Monia, who had manually manipulated the illusion magic for this space, was feeling a pain far more intense than mine.
“It hurts like hell.”
I yanked the spear out of my body.
Blood poured out in streams. If this weren’t just an illusion, I’d be in real trouble.
By any standard….even by Cradle’s standards, this was a fatal wound.
“This seriously hurts like hell.”
Either way, this is a fail.
I didn’t even get to find out what the test was, and I’m already disqualified. That’s frustrating.
Still…
“I’ll see you in the real world.”
Of course when you’re under arrest.
“I won’t run away this time either. So let’s have a serious conversation.”
To be honest, I still couldn’t understand Monia’s one-sided hatred and fury.
But then again, the same applied to her.
She had simply chosen me as the target of her rage. She didn’t really know what kind of person I was.
That’s why I wanted to talk to her.
No matter how irrational she seemed, it was still worth a try.
That was the best I could do.
“Or what? Should we just talk like this?”
Even on the brink of death, the hatred in her eyes didn’t fade.
Truly impressive.
Utterly pathetic, too.
“Hmph. Johan, things are getting interesting, aren’t they?”
“…Can’t you read the room and butt out for once?”
Mephistopheles’s voice rang in my ear.
This lunatic actually followed me into the illusion magic just to meddle?
And he still hasn’t been caught?
She’s an archmage. Is it really that hard to detect a demon?
“I got involved because it was worth getting involved in. Look, Johan….it’s a demon.”
“…What?”
It took me a moment to understand Mephistopheles’s sneer.
And the moment I did—
“Shax!”
From Monia’s mouth came a scream-like string of incomprehensible words, and at the same time, black feathers began to scatter around her.
“…You’ve really gone all the way, huh?”
In that moment, I lost even the slightest shred of sympathy I had for Monia.
***
The instant I realized she had made a contract with a demon, I called out for help to Olga Hermod.
No, “tried” would be the more accurate word here.
“……!”
No sound came out.
No matter how hard I tried to shout, nothing came out of my mouth.
“Shax is a demon that governs sight, hearing, and speech.”
Ah. Thanks for the explanation.
I take back what I said about you being useless and butting in. But if you’re not going to help, then just shut up and stay quiet.
“……”
There was a ringing in my ears.
My vision distorted as well.
Simple, yet absolute power. Irresistible power.
Even illusion magic could produce effects like this. In fact, compared to some illusion spells, what I was experiencing now was relatively tame.
The real problem was that I couldn’t resist it.
If it were magic, I might’ve found a way to counter it somehow. But this felt like my very senses, my five perceptions, were being warped. There was nothing I could do.
And it was only getting worse.
I wasn’t even sure if I was still standing upright anymore.
The power of a demon, effective even within an illusion.
As long as I didn’t know the limits of that power, I couldn’t afford to just sit back and dismiss this as “just an illusion”.
Here, I must escape this space, even if it meant committing suicide.
So I took up my sword.
“…….”
And I slit my throat.
***
“Haah…!”
The moment I broke free from the illusion, I gasped for breath and clutched at my throat.
“It seems you’re all right now.”
Olga Hermod was pointing her staff at my head.
A faint blue light shimmered at the tip of the staff.
“What about Monia?”
“Unfortunately, she got away.”
“How is that even possible?”
Even if she had made a contract with a demon, to think Monia could slip away from an Archmage Olga Hermod? And inside her own domain, no less?
“…Was it because of me?”
“No. I was simply incompetent.”
Even after escaping the illusion, I was still reeling, struggling to catch my breath.
In other words, the power of Shax, the demon Monia had contracted with, extended beyond illusion and affected reality itself.
My senses twisted without pause.
Olga Hermod must have been using illusion magic to constantly reset those warped perceptions back to normal.
“It was just my lack of ability that kept me from doing my job properly.”
Olga Hermod had chosen to prioritize me over chasing Monia.
The other faculty members would’ve been too slow to grasp the situation anyway, so there was little choice.
“Be that as it may, I can’t understand why incidents like this only ever seem to happen around you. Just what are you getting yourself into?”
“I’d like to know that myself.”
Honestly, I was curious about that too.
***
Olga Hermod had been summoned to the imperial court over this matter, but she eventually returned.
“Um, Headmistress, are you all right?”
“That damned emperor bastard.”
From her unrestrained curses, the faculty could tell she had been thoroughly chewed out by Abraham.
“Go take care of your work. I’ll handle this matter somehow.”
“If there’s anything we can do to help…”
“I said, go take care of your work.”
“Yes…”
After practically driving the teachers out, Olga Hermod let out a sigh.
But the sigh lasted only a moment. Soon, she made her way toward the Magic Tower.
“If you’re curious about what happened to Monia, then follow me.”
“Ah, how did you know?”
At Olga Hermod’s summons, Yuna popped out as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Do you think I don’t know you? I had things to say anyway, so just follow quietly.”
If Yuna was consciously keeping watch, tracking her down wasn’t hard.
And above all, there was no way Yuna would sit still when it came to something involving Johan.
Realizing how well she had come to understand Yuna’s habits, Olga Hermod let out another sigh.
“I’ll be busy tracking Monia for the time being.”
“Is that so?”
“And you’ll be busy as well, since you’ll have to take over the work of the Magic Tower.”
“Wait… what?”
Before Yuna could fully grasp what those words meant, Olga Hermod grabbed her as she tried to dart in front of her.
“Don’t tell me you were planning to just enjoy the title and do nothing?”
“Ughhh…”
“You’d better start preparing now. At the very least, if you don’t want something to come back to bite you later, you need to prove your ability.”
Seeing Yuna’s horrified expression, Olga Hermod finally let out a laugh.
***
Yuna ended up half-imprisoned in the Magic Tower, forced to handle its affairs.
“Ohoho! Successor! Your calculations here are wrong. Please do it over.”
Surrounded by countless mages, Yuna was living in pure misery.
And their attitudes toward her had grown far more friendly than before.
It was because Yuna had been adopted as Olga Hermod’s daughter.
And at the same time, it was also because she had a talent for magic.
She had once been under the tutelage of Archmage Charybdis Salos in her childhood.
Thanks to the solid foundation she had built more thoroughly than expected, her learning process in magic progressed smoothly without any obstacles.
Because of that, Yuna became the unanimously acknowledged candidate to succeed the current Master of the Magic Tower.
Her position had become so secure that even her handling the tower’s affairs in the Master’s stead was seen as cute.
“Um, Elder Ged? I’m still a student, so wouldn’t it be better for me to return to the Cradle and focus on my studies?”
“It’s quite all right, Successor. The Cradle is temporarily closed right now.”
“Ugh…”
It was only natural.
There had been a major exam, and in the midst of that, an incident occurred internally.
For now, keeping things quiet was the right move.
Students unrelated to the incident would each take their own kind of break.
Of course, for Yuna who had been chosen as the next Master of the Magic Tower rest was not an option.
The tower’s affairs were far more numerous, complicated, and important than she had imagined.
“I don’t even know how many days I’ve been working here.”
“Today is the fourth day.”
“It’s already been that long?!”
Yuna continued to devote herself solely to work, completely unaware of what was happening in the outside world.
The endless stream of duties under strict surveillance, where she couldn’t even read the newspaper, was wearing her down.
But escaping from the elders or breaking past them was out of the question.
Though they might not be Archmages, they were still the elders of the Magic Tower.
For Yuna, who was an assassin, breaking through them head-on was close to impossible.
It was only her lack of experience that put her below them. There were plenty of people in the tower who could go toe-to-toe with Ariel and win.
Yuna had, in fact, attempted to escape several times, only to realize firsthand the surprising power the Magic Tower possessed.
“This is all for your sake Successor. Now then, please take care of this document as well.”
“Waaah!”
Elder Ged let out a hearty laugh at the sight of Yuna’s tearful expression.
It was all for Yuna’s benefit.
Is this enough, Tower Master?
And this was also the will of Olga Hermod.
***
I was able to leave the hospital three days after being admitted.
Perhaps because the Headmistress had given the order personally this time, I wasn’t kicked out by the hospital staff.
That’s right. I was discharged of my own will.
It was a fresh experience. Something I’d never encountered since entering the Cradle.
Once I was out, the first thing I did was try to find out where Yuna had gone, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find her.
“What the hell is that girl Yuna up to now?”
People said they saw Olga Hermod taking her somewhere.
Since Yuna was now starting to make a name for herself as Olga Hermod’s successor, it wasn’t all that surprising.
I had worried that the rumor about Yuna being adopted by Olga Hermod might negatively affect her….but that never happened.
“Don’t you think the Headmistress is going too far? She’s so strict just because they’re connected.”
“Honestly, it never made sense that Yuna was in Class D in the first place.”
Most people believed that far from being favored, Yuna had actually been unfairly treated.
On the other hand, rumors started to spread that Olga Hermod was too strict.
Those kinds of rumors weren’t necessarily bad.
But still…
“What the hell has that kid been doing lately?”
I couldn’t help but frown as I looked at this morning’s paper.
Front page.
“Why is she trying to stir up so much trouble?”
It reported that Safe Clown had recently been openly going around taking down one powerful figure after another.
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