The Wave (Part 4)
Under Chain was no longer bothering to hide. They had pitched their encampment right out in the open, ringing the Cradle's perimeter.
The locals living in the surrounding area had either barricaded their doors or fled altogether.
As for the Imperial Knights who were supposed to deal with them, they were nowhere to be found.
Then again, Under Chain was throwing an absurd amount of manpower into storming the Cradle. The Empire had likely diverted their troops elsewhere to counter a diversionary strike of equal importance.
Abraham had probably written off the Cradle for now. With Olga Hermod present, he likely figured she could hold out as long as possible with minimal support.
As a result, Olga Hermod was left entirely on her own, forced to weave an illusion barrier encompassing the entirety of the Cradle to brace for the dark mages' assault.
Yet, even this precarious standoff was steadily drawing toward its conclusion.
“Ugh, it's so stuffy in here.”
The fact that all the students had been gathered in the Great Auditorium was proof enough.
Did she intend to stage a siege defense here?
Or perhaps she believed that even if the rest of the campus fell, this hall alone could be defended without fail.
I had no idea how long it had been since a terrorist act on this scale had occurred. Frankly speaking, it was my first time experiencing anything like it, but...
“Want some snacks?”
“Oh, sweet. Pass me one.”
The students were relaxing in an atmosphere so peaceful you would think they were out on a picnic.
Hey, guys? There's literally a pack of lunatics outside trying to commit mass terrorism right now, you know?
“Gotta eat to keep our strength up.”
“I'm going to tear them limb from limb.”
Ah. Turns out I was the one who had it wrong.
To think I didn't even realize they were just fueling up before marching out to battle...
Why were they readying themselves for combat when they'd been assembled here under the premise of being protected?
Did they not trust Olga Hermod? Or were they simply so accustomed to fighting that it had become second nature?
Whichever it was, it was a pitiful sight.
“Greetings. I am Olga Hermod, Director of the Cradle. I requested your presence today because I have an announcement to make to the student body.”
Amidst the restless clamor, Olga Hermod made her entrance.
She didn't bother hushing the crowd, yet remarkably, her voice carried with crystalline clarity no matter how loud the auditorium grew.
Truly, magic befitting a grand master of illusion and spatial arcana.
“I trust most of you have already deduced why I asked you to gather here. Yes, you are correct. At this very moment, the Cradle is facing an imminent threat of terrorism from the organization known as Under Chain.”
Tap. Tap.
Olga Hermod lightly struck her staff against the floor. At once, the surrounding space began to shimmer and waver.
It was the unfurling of her magic—or perhaps her innate ability.
“I would like nothing more than to tell you to stay put and let us protect you. However, in the brief span of less than half a year, I have come to learn something about you all: your righteous fury and sense of justice are not things that can be quelled with mere words.”
A portion of the magic dissolved away.
The entryway lit up with a brilliant radiance. Even without an explanation, the meaning was unmistakable.
“If you wish to fight, then do so. However, bear in mind that you must take full responsibility for your own actions.”
Olga Hermod did not blindly hold the students back.
She knew full well that the students of the Cradle were warriors.
And having been a hero of the war herself, she understood such people better than anyone.
“That is all. This hall will remain secure, so please act as you see fit.”
With those parting words, Olga Hermod vanished like a mirage.
It seemed Under Chain's assault had officially begun.
“Yeah, figures.”
And just as expected, Yuna was nowhere to be found.
I knew this would happen.
The ones who claim they couldn't care less are always the ones who care the most.
The dark mages sneered as they looked up at the perimeter wall of the Cradle.
“Ha! A wall like this is nothing—”
The wall was still half-shattered, enduring proof that the academy had yet to fully recover from the fallout of the past year.
A few of the dark mages hurled themselves toward the sections where the rubble was lowest, assuming they could easily vault over.
Thud!
“Gah?!”
Yet the moment they tried to clear the barrier, they slammed face-first into solid stone.
The wall had abruptly shot upward.
Seeing them bounce off the barrier and plummet to the ground, the other dark mages laughed derisively.
“Fools! The one defending the Cradle right now is Olga Hermod! Did you not even consider that illusion magic would be at work?!”
Having mocked his thwarted comrades, the dark mage charged the wall himself, brandishing a massive halberd.
“In the end, all we have to do is smash through it!”
Crack!
His sweeping blow decisively shattered something.
Namely, the skull of his own ally.
“...Huh?”
And identical horrors were unfolding all across the perimeter.
Having merely heard she was a grand master of illusion magic, they had taken her far too lightly. Olga Hermod was a mage who had carved her name in blood across the battlefields of war.
They should have given more thought to what that truly entailed.
Or rather, they were incapable of thinking at all.
Even that cognitive paralysis was an effect woven by Olga Hermod's illusions.
Those capable of resisting her magic—which degraded the very faculties of reason and judgment—amounted to a precious few.
“Hmph...”
And one of those few was standing among them.
Returned from death, the Mage of the Wave, Charybdis, raised his head.
The ghostfire nestled inside his skeletal eye sockets flickered.
“Even sharper than I remember. It seems your skill has grown.”
Charybdis knew this magic.
It was the proudest art of his old comrade-in-arms. He knew all too well just how horrifying it was when unleashed upon a battlefield.
An illusion that stripped away the mind's ability to judge reality.
Trapped within it, enemies would slaughter one another with ecstatic laughter spilling from their lips.
And in those days, Charybdis's role had been to unleash surges of flame over that living hell, quieting the battlefield once and for all.
Now, however, they stood on opposite sides.
Resisting the illusion that eroded the mind itself, Charybdis had to tear through Olga Hermod's magic.
And for the man he was now, that was a trivial task.
“Only death shall grant us eternity.”
Charybdis recited Under Chain's creed as he made his proclamation.
“Therefore, all of you, die here.”
KRAAAASH!
With that decree, death began to coalesce into a raging vortex.
The dark mages of Under Chain swept into its wake perished to the last man, their souls fueling the burgeoning power of death.
Once, Charybdis had harbored a profound revulsion toward taking human life.
Now, however, he viewed death as the sole path to mutual understanding.
Once, Charybdis had lived in terror of being murdered by another.
Now that he had tasted death himself, he understood that there was nothing to fear in it.
Once, Charybdis had doubted anyone who dared approach him.
Now, he knew that through death, all souls could be bound together.
Here and now.
At this very juncture, every shackle that had ever bound him fell away.
“The death we bestow shall guide you all to true salvation.”
The Wave surged.
A vortex saturated with the aura of death poured out in a singular direction.
Paying no heed even to the illusions, the wave of death devoured everything in its path.
ROOOOAAAR!
Swallowing the surroundings in the shape of a colossal tidal wave, the surge finally shattered Olga Hermod's illusion.
A half-crumbled wall.
Magic corrupted by the stench of death.
Corpses strewn across the ground.
Under Chain had paid a catastrophic toll merely to breach a single perimeter wall of the Cradle.
Yet, their sacrifice had lost its traditional meaning long ago.
Creeeak!
The corpses of the dark mages rose once more as undead, their souls bound inextricably to the ring of the Great Sage.
Indeed, to them, death was not an end.
It was merely a new beginning.
Even in death, their flesh marched on for their comrades, and their departed souls became links in the chain, lingering in this world for all eternity.
“The gates are open.”
“Hmm...”
Charybdis glanced behind him.
Only a single being had remained standing after being caught in the wake of his Wave.
No—could one even use the word 'survived'?
Before his eyes stood an entity that defied the categories of life and death.
Garments no better than tattered rags.
And beneath that cloth and skin, countless bundles of iron chains were fused directly to his flesh.
Clink, rattle!
Scores of chains dragged across the stone, striking the earth with an eerie cacophony.
Clink, rattle!
With each step he took, he shifted from a living man into a rotting corpse.
Clink, rattle!
With another step, he transformed from a young child into a withered elder.
Clink, rattle!
A being who had transcended death, and transcended time itself.
“Fascinating. I do hope I can find the answer to my question here.”
The Great Sage, Faust.
He took his first step into the Cradle.
Back at the shelter in the Great Auditorium.
Naturally, unperturbed by Yuna's disappearance, I was staying right where I belonged—fairly and squarely protected inside the hall.
Honestly, I just wanted to stay here.
I wanted to feign ignorance of everything, shut my eyes, and pretend nothing was happening, just like I always did.
Yet what could I do? If it were anyone else, sure, but a friend of mine was in danger.
Weak-hearted fool that I was, once something started weighing on my mind, I was the type who couldn't sleep a wink at night.
—Testing, testing. Can you hear me?
“...I hear you loud and clear.”
It was right after a massive detonation roared outside.
I'd asked to be contacted the moment Charybdis was spotted, but I hadn't expected him to be found this quickly.
Couldn't they have taken their sweet time finding him? I wasn't mentally prepared yet...
I pulled an ordinary hand mirror from my pocket and held it up, pretending to be in the middle of a call.
Naturally, it was just a regular mirror with not a shred of magic on it.
Silver Mirrors were rather expensive luxury items, hardly the kind of thing you could swap around with the likes of Stan. Still, since their existence was common knowledge, people around me would just assume I was using one if I held it up and muttered to myself.
“Found him already?”
—We found him, yes, but tracking where he went from there is going to be difficult.
“Why? Did the Great Sage himself show up or something?”
—...Did you foresee this as well?
Ah, does this punk still believe I'm an Oracle?
That misunderstanding expired ages ago, you bastard. After all the disasters and incidents I've been dragged into, how can you still say that with a straight face?
“Foresee, my foot. I just thought about what the worst-case scenario would be. So, the Great Sage made his grand entrance, did he?”
It wasn't a development from the original game, but predicting it hadn't been hard.
The dark mages had gone out of their way to build up their raid on the Cradle.
On top of that, they'd added a powerhouse like Charybdis to their ranks.
Yet even combining all of that, they still couldn't surpass Olga Hermod.
That was simply the reality of an Archmage.
“They must have known that to conquer the Cradle, they had to neutralize the Director one way or another. I figured they'd have prepared a countermeasure of equal weight. But to think it would be the Great Sage...”
Were they planning to burn the Cradle to ashes?
Seriously, what on earth was in this dinky little academy that made everyone throw such a massive tantrum over it?
Well, it wasn't actually that small, and crushing the empire's future talents in their cradle was arguably a rational calculation. Still, couldn't they consider the cost-effectiveness for once?
Scumbags whose greatest life achievement was claiming a cheap trophy for trampling an academy.
—Regardless, I have kept my promise. It seems things will become rather hectic from here on out, so I will not be able to offer any further assistance.
“Yeah, thanks. That alone was plenty of help.”
Olga Hermod and Lobelia's party would have to pull out all the stops to halt the Great Sage.
Faust was the only fully realized final boss entity at this point in the timeline—a monster endowed with both brains and brawn, wielding martial might on par with Tillis and cunning intellect rivaling Cult.
Of course, if we were measuring by the final chapter of the story, Cult might end up being the strongest, but right now, Faust was by far the greatest monstrosity.
“Huh? Yohan, where are you going?”
Now that I'd heard Charybdis had crossed the threshold of the Cradle, I had no choice but to get moving.
Though I never imagined the front gates would fall this fast...
“To where I need to be.”
Striking a solemn, weighty pose for once in my life, I gripped the sword at my hip.
“Guess he's heading to the bathroom.”
My reputation had apparently degraded past the point of no return, but I decided not to let it bother me right now.
In any case, not every student in the Cradle had rushed out to fight.
Even among the second and third years, plenty were sitting out the battle due to poor physical condition or various personal reasons.
As for the first years, virtually all of them were huddled together in the Great Auditorium.
Reaching into the crowd, I singled out one person and hauled him up by the scruff of his collar.
“I need your help, Dietrich.”
“Oh, Senior? Are you heading out to battle?”
“Yeah. Come with me. You know as well as anyone that I'm weak, right? I need you to back me up.”
“Well, if it's a request from you, Senior, there's no way I could possibly refuse!”
I was grateful, sure, but why did this guy hold me in such ridiculously high esteem?
I could never understand him.
Regardless, I managed to fish out Dietrich, who had clearly been holding back an itch to fight while stuck in the peer pressure created by the rest of the first years.
“So where are we heading, Senior?”
“Well, do you know what's going on?”
“Not really.”
“Then listen carefully. This is intel that only reached me, but the Great Sage has infiltrated the Cradle. Because of that, nobody is keeping tabs on Charybdis Salos, whom they originally prepared for.”
“Ah! I understand now. Noblesse oblige! You don't have an ounce of strength to your name, yet as a nobleman, you strive to set an example for others! That is so like you, Senior!”
“You cheeky little punk, the way you talk... No, forget it. You're right. You'll help me, right?”
“Of course! Someone has to do it anyway. It wouldn't hurt to become heroes together with you, Senior.”
Dietrich let out a hearty laugh and gripped the hilt of the sword at his hip.
With that, I had secured an escort.