The Wave (Part 6)
Even if I said so myself, my entrance just now had been pretty damn cool.
All right, then. What the hell was I supposed to do now...?
Everything had spiraled completely outside my calculations. My plan to track down Charybdis before Yuna did had ended in total failure, and Yuna herself was already battered to pieces. Damn it all, could we even hold out against a monster like that?
"Yuna."
"Yohan..."
I spoke while keeping myself firmly planted between Charybdis and Yuna. Cold sweat was surely pouring down my face in rivulets by now, but standing behind me, she wouldn't be able to tell. First, there was one thing I had to confirm. My next move hinged entirely on her answer.
"What do you want to do with Charybdis Salos?"
"This is..."
"Just so you know, drawing a line and pretending we're strangers is an excuse I only let slide once."
It was already too late to ask what she thought about all this. Yuna had already taken action, failing to keep even her own promise that she wouldn't do a thing. That was precisely why I needed to confirm this much.
"If what you want is to return Charybdis to death, by whatever means necessary..."
I reached into my pocket, drew another Magic Engineering Battery, and struck it along the blade. The Sword Aura that had been heavily depleted on my rush over flared back to life, restored to its pristine radiance.
"...I'll help you."
There. Battle preparations were complete. How much someone like me could pull off no matter how hard I tried was anyone's guess. Even so, the moment I chose to come here, my resolve had already been set in stone.
"Why...? Why would you go this far for me?"
Her voice trembled, thick with tears. It was the first time I had ever heard Yuna cry. Seeing a girl who always wandered around wearing that goofy, carefree grin holding back a sob soured my mood considerably.
"What about you, then? What was going through your head whenever you helped me out?"
"That's... that was just a simple thing for me to do..."
"Then that's all the reason I need, too."
Watching the tidal wave rushing toward us, I muttered under my breath, "Stepping up like this was simply easier for me than pretending I didn't see you and looking away."
Above all, it was because Yuna was no longer a stranger to me. Since time immemorial, I had feared parting far more than death itself, so making this choice came as naturally to me as drawing breath.
"Dietrich, I'm sorry for dragging you into such dangerous business, but lend me a hand a little longer."
"Yes! Of course, Senior!"
All right, time to review the plan. There was no time to explain the scheme I had cooked up on my own. So I would simply trust Yuna to read my mind, just as she always did. Whatever I did, she would understand the meaning behind it. Though we hadn't known each other for even half a year, we were friends who understood the core of who we were.
Even so, if I had to say just one thing...
"Yuna."
"Yeah...?"
"Everything depends on you. We're only here to carve out an opening."
Because without a shadow of a doubt, the protagonist of this stage was Yuna. I raised my sword and took my place at Dietrich's side. I was a terribly insignificant man to be standing on a stage like this, but the gear outfitting me was anything but insignificant.
Indeed.
"Breaking even on this venture is completely out of the question."
Draped over my body were custom-made over-technological creations from Ex Machina that money couldn't buy even if you begged. Good grief, the sheer waste of it broke my heart.
"Whoa, a man of your caliber calculates profit margins, Senior?"
"...You're not being sarcastic, right?"
"Pardon?"
"No, whatever... forget it."
I pulled yet another Magic Engineering Battery from my pocket and ran it along the steel. The Sword Aura coating the blade flared with redoubled intensity. I couldn't compress it into a blazing lightsaber like Dietrich could, but since I wasn't the one tasked with cutting down Charybdis anyway, this was more than enough. In fact, this approach was far more practical.
"Whew..."
I exhaled slowly, focusing on deflecting the spells carried within the wave that looked particularly lethal. The rest didn't matter. The High-Output Mana Barrier Cloak Emily had crafted for me would easily deflect any minor curses. For the record, the cloak ran on battery power as well. Over the past week, I had painstakingly charged twelve batteries in my spare time. Today, I had to fight under the assumption that I would burn through every single one.
"Insolent pests..."
Charybdis, pouring a deluge of waves toward us, swept his staff. A segment of the surging torrent veered sideways, arcing around our flank. That was precisely why his innate Trait, Wave, was so terrifying. It allowed magic to flow like liquid, snaking around defenses to seek out an opponent's blind spot. An utterly infuriating ability. Was he dead set on finishing off Yuna while she was collapsed on the ground?
"Senior!"
"Don't worry about this side."
Bang!
I pulled the trigger. The spell curving toward Yuna was shot clean out of the air. This, too, was a Magic Engineering Pistol crafted at my request by Emily. Frankly, there wasn't much difference in firepower between a conventional gun and a magitech one. The real issue was that Imperial law strictly regulated firearms, making it impossible to procure ammunition. Hence, this weapon also relied on Magic Engineering Batteries.
"Senior...?"
"Dietrich, my family holds a count's title. You catch my drift?"
"Aha! Understood completely!"
The simpleton nodded readily, taking my casual gunfire in stride just because I dropped our count's title. Since certain high-ranking nobles legitimately possessed firearms, he must have jumped to his own convenient conclusions. Of course, in reality, our house owned no such rare treasures. Which meant this was an outright crime.
"Dietrich, can you punch through that?"
"It won't be easy, but I'll give it everything I've got! You never know until you try!"
"Good. That's the kind of answer I like to hear."
As expected of the future Sword Saint. With such raw talent, combat prowess, and unyielding character, it was no wonder Lobelia had set her sights on him despite him being a mere first-year.
"Move on my signal."
"Understood!"
Fending off Charybdis seemed far more manageable than I had anticipated. He wasn't nearly as overwhelming as I had feared.
My mind raced, frantically piecing together what I was missing based on the fragmented information I possessed. Charybdis was a character who had never once appeared in the original game. It wasn't simply that his identity was concealed like Yuna's—his very existence and actions were entirely absent from the plot. Could the deeds of an entity that formidable truly go unnoticed? After all, merely staging a localized skirmish near the Cradle had already sent rumors flying across the entire capital.
Only two possibilities came to mind. First, that in the game's canonical storyline, Yuna had tracked him down and assassinated him before he ever had the chance to run amok. And the second...
"Yuna."
Or perhaps he simply couldn't sustain his physical existence for an extended period. If it was the latter, it made sense why fighting him felt surprisingly feasible right now. Based on my calculations, he should have been leagues stronger than this. Which meant...
"Is that man really the Charybdis Salos you knew?"
I pressed Yuna again. Swept up in emotional turmoil, she likely hadn't been able to make an objective judgment. I needed to pierce through that haze.
"Is the Charybdis you knew really someone of this caliber?"
Was he truly a madman so blinded by vengeance that he would raid the Cradle? Was he truly someone so weak that a handful of academy students could tie him down? Charybdis was undeniably formidable, yet I had the distinct impression that if Yuna had fought alongside us from the very beginning, we might have repelled him with surprising ease. He was that diminished.
"I don't think he is, but unfortunately, I don't really know what kind of man Charybdis was."
"..."
I questioned the girl collapsed on the stone. This was an answer only she could provide.
"Was that miserable shell really the man you felt so much remorse over that you cried your eyes out?"
I had heard from Olga Hermod about what Yuna had done in the past. I only knew of Charybdis secondhand. But there was one thing—a realization that had struck me after catching a glimpse of the letter he had sent.
"Was your second father really nothing more than that?"
"...No."
Yuna's shoulders trembled violently.
"He wasn't!"
With her head lowered, there was no telling what expression she wore. Was she gripped by indignation? Or drowned in sorrow? Either was fine with me.
"Then get ready."
As long as she was prepared to step forward, that was all that mattered.
"From here on out, let's drag out the true feelings of Charybdis sleeping underneath that bag of bones."
Human beings are complicated creatures; they cannot be summed up in a handful of spoken words. When people scarcely comprehend their own hearts, how could mere sentences convey what they feel for one another? Words are not everything. That was something I firmly believed.
"Dietrich!"
"Haaaaaaaap!"
At my cue, Dietrich surged forward. The pressure bearing down on me evaporated in an instant, but the tempest crashing against Dietrich as he charged ahead grew exponentially fiercer. His blade was a silver blur as he swung with demonic ferocity. Yet stemming an entire tidal wave with a single sword was an uphill struggle. Dietrich was turning crimson by the second, bathed in his own blood. Even so, he was undeniably cutting upstream through the surging waters.
What about Charybdis, then? Would he feel flustered watching a swordsman carve through his domain?
"Hmph."
No, fat chance of that. He was a legendary hero of the great war. He had crossed blades with fighters of Dietrich's caliber countless times, and he was the survivor who had brought every last one of them to their knees.
"Impressive talent. You shall surely ascend to the ranks of superhumans in the future."
Charybdis brandished his staff once more. Within the raging magical bombardment, the monstrous silhouette of a colossal shark materialized amidst the churning tide.
"However, standing before you is an entity on the very threshold of an Archmage!"
The shark swam through the torrent as though truly alive. Slipping past Dietrich's slashing edge, it clamped its jaws viciously around his flank.
"Urgh...!"
Dietrich responded instantly, reversing his grip and stabbing his blade downward into the beast gnawing at his side. But there was not just one shark. The wave summoned by Charybdis was vast, and dozens of shadowy predators were already circling within its depths. At this rate, Dietrich would be torn to shreds.
Which was why...
"Hey! Over here!"
I deliberately shouted at the top of my lungs to draw Charybdis's attention. No matter how wise a mage might be, they didn't know everything under the sun. And I happened to be packing tools they couldn't possibly anticipate.
I pulled every single remaining Magic Engineering Battery from my pockets. Containing dense reserves of my own mana, these gadgets functioned as high-yield explosives when overloaded. Naturally, they were strictly single-use when detonated. Considering they were rechargeable batteries, blowing them up was a staggering financial loss.
K-K-KBOOOOM!
Yet I threw them without hesitation. Because I wasn't the kind of son of a bitch who slapped a price tag on a comrade's life. The batteries I hurled into the churning torrent erupted in violent bursts of azure flames, detonating with deafening roars.
"Hmm...? A curious contrivance. The handiwork of Ex Machina?"
"Look at you, recognizing it."
"Impressive as it is, it was undoubtedly designed for an entirely different purpose. Its destructive power is far too pitiful to be considered a military armament."
He was right. Truthfully, compared to the amount of mana packed inside, its destructive yield couldn't be called formidable. It was unavoidable. Not only was the mana I possessed rather mediocre in purity, but these were crude explosions of raw, unrefined mana rather than refined spells or Sword Aura. In the end, it was merely flashy and loud.
Yet that was more than enough. Because it stole the attention of Charybdis, who had been methodically pouring down lethal spells to butcher us, if only for a fraction of a second.
"Still, wasn't that quite the circus act?"
"A mere sideshow, nothing more. Brat, compared to that lad over there, you fall laughably short."
"I couldn't agree more. But that's plenty."
This was the very best I could do—and the precise prerequisite demanded by my plan. And I could proudly say I played my part to perfection. Because...
"Thank you, Yohan."
Because the protagonist of this stage wasn't us. It was Yuna.
A flashy, raucous distraction? All the better. Drawing every eye meant setting the ideal stage for an assassin.
"A wonderful circus," she whispered. "You've got real talent."
From the very beginning, she was the only one in this place who could hope to claim victory against Charybdis. She alone possessed the capability, and she alone held the right. Yuna's ambush struck with surgical precision, severing his spine. No matter how immortal a reanimated lich's vessel might be, destroying the central axis of the body was a catastrophic blow.
"How dare you...!"
Yet even as he collapsed, Charybdis thrust his staff aloft. Once more, the tide surged. Even in death, he was a hero of the war; the bottomless resilience of a warrior who had carved his way through countless battlefields was not something to be trifled with.
"Did you think this would suffice to break me?!"
Though his upper body bent backward at an unnatural angle, Charybdis's fighting spirit refused to buckle.
"I shall drag you down with me...!"
The wave he summoned this time coiled around his own form, erupting outward to engulf Yuna, who had driven her daggers into his frame. In the face of that raging, churning deluge, it seemed as though Yuna would be swept away and crushed instantly.
Yet she stood utterly unscathed.
"How...?"
If anything, the torrent seemed to part and flow harmlessly around her. Charybdis shuddered at the inexplicable sight. As he stood frozen in utter disbelief, I watched Yuna and thought to myself:
Yeah. Just as I suspected, what was written in that letter wasn't merely a heartfelt plea.
Ever since Olga Hermod told me the story of Yuna and Charybdis, a strange sense of dissonance had nagged at me. So I had asked Olga if I could see the letter Charybdis had sent her. She had smiled warmly and readily handed it over. The letter was filled with words overflowing with boundless affection for his daughter. Yet woven between those lines was something else—something I hadn't been able to decipher at the time.
In that case, the shimmering azure radiance unfolding from Yuna's fingertips...
...could only be the true magic bearing the name of Wave.