Chapter 34
Chapter 34
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 34
>Chapter Title: A Night of Counting Stars (8)
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*
A line of fire flashed. Onest immediately twisted his head, dodging the bullet.
It was a strike aimed precisely at the space between his eyebrows. Damn it. Onest bit his lip and staggered back.
“Damn it, are you serious? You dare try to assassinate the captain aboard a Kalion warship? Know the consequences of your actions, soldier!”
“Am I the one who has to bear them?”
Ivan approached, spinning his axe. He didn't rush to close the distance.
Slowly, he scanned the man. A mage. One who had learned swordsmanship.
Elves, in most cases, did not wield swords. Especially not those of officer rank.
Among elven soldiers, all field-grade officers were high-ranking nobles, and elven nobles considered sweating to be a lowly affair.
However, there were some among them who wielded swords. This was where the matter became somewhat complicated.
To have learned swordsmanship despite the scorn of others, combined with the characteristically long lives of their species, implied great potential.
Most elves despised close-quarters combat, but paradoxically, the world's greatest sword wielder was an elf. She was known to have been the Hero's former master.
Which meant.
The fact that he was a sword-wielding elven mage officer was what held Ivan back. Even though he had broken one of the man's legs in the initial surprise attack.
“Elizaveta has sent quite the hound. What is your name, soldier?”
“You think stalling for time will give you an advantage?”
Onest frowned at Ivan's words. *Quick on the uptake, aren't you.*
He clicked his tongue briefly.
He couldn't rashly weave a spell. Against those classified as so-called 'superhumans,' the distance between him and Ivan was less than a single step.
They were within each other's attack range.
After a brief standoff, the elf sighed and let his shoulders slump.
“I surrender. I'll have the soldiers stand down.”
“Throw down your sword.”
“Why not just ask me to sign the surrender documents? There's no guarantee you won't cut my head off the moment I do.”
He wasn't wrong. But Ivan narrowed his eyes.
An elf surrendering this quickly? Without even putting up a proper fight? A field-grade noble, no less?
It was impossible.
Ivan silently raised his axe. Surrender was something one could do after being neutralized.
Seeing this, Onest clicked his tongue.
“Damn it. Fine. Catch.”
And just like that, he threw the sword at Ivan with all his might.
-Clang!
As Ivan knocked the flying blade aside, Onest was already leaping back, his hand reaching inside his coat.
Ivan leaped toward Onest, lowering his stance. Beneath the tightly fitted uniform, there was no silhouette of a weapon.
In that case, the only things that could come out of there were a pistol, a dagger, or an explosive magitech weapon.
Of those, the last one was the most likely, and the most troublesome.
“Lord Veolgrin!!”
“…?”
*Why did he suddenly shout that man's name...?*
Ivan shook off the sudden wave of confusion. This was no time to ponder such things.
Shouting out technique names, or the names of influential figures, was a fundamentally foolish tactic.
Ivan kicked off the floor and swung his axe. There was no time for a delicate strike with the back of the axe. He held the blade straight and brought it down directly on Onest's forearm.
He couldn't afford to be careless when dealing with a mage's suspicious magitech device.
-Click.
As expected, what Onest pulled from his coat was a small, steel-ball-shaped magitech device. It was densely covered in purple incantations, giving it a very ominous appearance.
Just before Ivan's axe could slice through Onest's forearm, his thumb pressed down hard on the top of the device.
And then. A wave erupted.
-KABOOOOOM!!
Ivan was thrown back by the violent shockwave, and he thought.
*Mission failure. To think he'd self-destruct.*
The mission Elizaveta had given him was to secure the scene of the rendezvous between the warship's captain and Aleksandr.
Who would have thought the captain would suddenly hit a self-destruct switch. How could anyone have predicted and prepared for this?
Ivan felt a ringing in his ears from the violent shockwave as he was thrown into a corner of the hallway.
“Kuhk.”
The impact squeezed his lungs, forcing a groan out of him. Yet his expression remained calm.
He immediately checked the condition of his arms and legs, confirmed that his fingers and toes were moving normally, and then pulled himself together.
It was an 'equipment check' honed through long training. For a trained agent, the body was just another piece of equipment.
‘For someone caught in a close-range anti-personnel explosion, I'm in too good of shape.’
Ivan pushed himself up, his body still reeling from the aftershock. His vision swam slightly from the blast's impact. As the ringing in his ears gradually faded, he could once again hear the sirens wailing in the corridor.
It was a good sign. It meant even his hearing was normal.
“This is unexpected.”
And at the voice that followed, Ivan froze. It was too familiar. And it was a voice that shouldn't be heard here.
Hearing the voice for the first time in four years, Ivan momentarily suspected it was an impersonation. But it wasn't. He hadn't misheard.
Through his blurry vision, he saw a characteristic dark green flame.
Ghostly fire burning from the depths of both eyes.
And the all-too-familiar mana signature.
“Really… Veolgrin…?”
“Yes. Why are you here? You were alive?”
The uniform, ruined by the explosion, the build, height, and appearance underneath it. All of it belonged to Onest, but…
Ivan realized instinctively. This man's 'soul' had been swapped.
“Possession…?”
“An interesting choice of words. This is called the [Art of Soul Transmission].”
The Hero's Party's mage. Fortress-Destroyer Veolgrin.
With familiar mana, a familiar voice, and an all-too-familiar arrogance, one of the greatest living mages spoke.
“Where did Aleksandr go, and why are you here?”
“…”
Veolgrin's appearance here was unexpected. In fact, it was something that couldn't have been predicted at all.
But before that, Ivan recalled the nature of this mission.
‘Confirm the connection between Crown Prince Aleksandr and the elven captain. And gather evidence.’
‘The elven captain… no, this airship is presumed to be experiencing a malfunction.’
‘Elizaveta designed it so that the only option available to the airship's captain would be Crown Prince Aleksandr.’
‘And those words from Veolgrin.’
*Where did Aleksandr go, and why are you here.* Ivan frowned at the deep implication contained within that dry question.
From the very beginning, Veolgrin had given the captain a magitech device containing the [Art of Soul Transmission].
Why? To meet with Aleksandr.
Then… why?
Because he had joined hands with Aleksandr.
“Was this planned from the start?”
“Of course. Kalion's airships are the culmination of the archipelago's technology. It's not as if they would suddenly malfunction. Especially after sailing for just over a fortnight?”
Moreover, this warship had set sail to safely escort Veolgrin's daughter, Elfihera.
She was the daughter of Veolgrin, one of the strongest elves and the mage of the Hero's Party. A being with an unrivaled position even among the many high nobles of the Kalion Archipelago.
A ship that set out to escort such an important person wouldn't malfunction after a mere fortnight.
Unless 'someone' had intentionally caused it.
A chill ran down his spine.
“That's right. It was to provoke Princess Elizaveta from the start. It was obvious that if that kid got angry, Aleksandr would make contact.”
“Why? Why did you do something like this?”
“Well now.”
Veolgrin chuckled. He wove mana with a flick of his fingertips, then suddenly asked.
“To whom does your loyalty lie?”
“To the great late king, Your Majesty.”
“Same as always. Good to see. You might as well have sent word that you were alive. Wasn't our friendship worth at least that much?”
Ivan ignored Veolgrin's words and readjusted his grip on the axe.
Fortunately, his body's performance was normal. But that was because the shockwave that had thrown him back wasn't an attack spell to begin with.
Can I face Veolgrin head-on and win?
The moment the thought occurred, he knew. It was impossible.
But could Veolgrin truly wield all of his original power?
Probably not. The amount of mana he could feel was only that of the captain.
“Oh, thinking of fighting? Well... you were always like that. 'Little' Ivan.”
“Is there another choice?”
“Of course. But I don't think you're one to make such a choice. Come on, then. Let's see your skills for the first time in a while.”
The captain's mana reserves were, of course, greater than a human's, but the gap wasn't so vast as to be despair-inducing.
In other words, it was a gap that could be challenged.
However… even with that much mana, if the one controlling the body was Veolgrin himself, what were the chances of victory?
‘None.’
Ivan knew his limits clearly. It was the most important virtue of a trained agent.
He had to view himself as a tool for mission accomplishment, which meant he had to accurately grasp his own catalog specs.
Therefore, Ivan knew he had no chance of victory. Veolgrin could easily tear him to pieces with even half that level of mana.
But, but….
The chances of victory didn't matter.
“I'll ask for a lesson.”
Ivan readjusted his grip on the axe, his eyes dark and sunken.
The chances of victory didn't matter.
Could he do it, or could he not? He had never considered such things important.
Did it need to be done? If it did, then he would do it, somehow. No matter the situation, he would give his all.
For a trained agent, it was not failure but giving up that was to be feared.
*
The decision, in the briefest of moments; the action, with the utmost speed.
The moment Ivan decided to attack, he threw himself forward. Straight ahead, directly at Veolgrin.
The sensation of peeling away time, splitting seconds into fragments.
The feeling of air resistance against his body dissociating the very flow of time, making it sluggish.
It was the sense of a 'superhuman,' entered by forcibly activating every nerve fiber by slamming mana into them.
A fraction of an instant, a diagram of a moment. This was the battlefield of superhumans.
In this time where even breaths were segmented, Ivan's axe flowed through the air as if swimming. Smoothly, sharply, yet powerfully.
-Whoooosh—!!
He aimed for the very instant the dark green mana began to coalesce.
The mana-enveloped axe possessed an anti-magic property in itself. It disrupted the completion of a spell by severing the threads as it was being woven.
Therefore, a mage's natural enemy is a warrior at close range. As it always has been.
-KRAKOOM!!
The impact was immediate, but the sound came a beat later. A discrepancy between sound and reaction that occurs as one approaches the speed of sound.
He tore through a layer of magic.
*I reached him. Veolgrin.*
Ivan's eyes said as much as he prepared his next move.
The moment he had peeled away the nearly completed spell, his axe would clearly be faster than the time it would take to chant the next one.
And so, he had reached it. The place where the giants of that era once walked.
“Excellent.”
A voice, tinged with laughter, echoed softly.
-Thwump—!!
A light resistance blocked his path. Ivan reacted instantly, twisting his waist. Five sharp icicles pierced through the space where he had been.
A speed that surpassed his danger sense. A spell completed the instant it was conceived.
The time it took for Ivan to regain his stance and raise his axe was still no more than a fraction of a segmented instant.
But, at the end of that brief clash.
“Hah.”
More than forty spells, each woven with a different structure, were etching themselves into the empty air.
Veolgrin smiled gently and flicked his hand.
“Show me more. Show me how much you've grown.”
Ivan grit his teeth and shot forward, charging again.
*