An Apology from Silence
"LIES?!"
Once Alfia had made up her mind, her course of action was simple. Swat away this bug (the interloper), and bring annihilation down upon the bug (a genuine bug) clinging to her sister. Then, at once, she unleashed her fastest magic once more.
"[Gospel]"
"[Firebolt]!"
The two spells collided once again. Heat and sound crashed together, and the resulting shockwave swept the area with a tremendous roar.
And that was the problem.
Annoying as it was to admit, the man's magic was superb. If nothing else, when it came to one-on-one combat, it was exceptional. Fast and powerful. Simple — and precisely because it was simple, devastatingly effective. The moment an opponent could forgo complicated additional effects and simply blow you away before you could blink, the options available to Alfia became severely limited.
Even for Alfia, it wasn't as though she completely ignored her surroundings. She could certainly claim she didn't care — but going all-out regardless was another matter entirely. She held no ill will toward Orario. She had no intention of reducing the homes and shops of people living their lives in peace to rubble.
And so her means were constrained. Normally, with her no-chant, "close-range" magic, she could have blown away almost any opponent — but astonishingly, she found herself hamstrung by an adversary wielding "true no-chant."
I see. So he's confident enough to swear he can stop me.
At the same time, Alfia found herself reflecting. She had always scorned her patron goddess for her insolence and arrogance — yet at some point, she too had begun carrying herself like a queen, exactly as Hera did, wearing that same imperious air.
"I apologize, boy."
"For allowing my arrogance to make me underestimate you."
Everyone present froze at Alfia's apology. First, at the sheer fact that that Alfia had apologized at all. Then, a second shock, as they grasped the meaning buried within it.
Alfia was admitting her own pride — and declaring that, unlike before, she would now fight at full strength. An accolade no one had wished for hung over the battlefield, and an immense tension began to coil through the air.
And the hero on the receiving end of that accolade—
"...First, there is one thing I would like to correct, if I may."
"Speak."
"I am not... a child."
"...What?"
"I am... a full-fledged... adult."
At those words, a different kind of astonishment swept through the onlookers. Reading the emotion packed into every halting, deliberate syllable, everyone thought the same thought at the same time.
THAT'S what matters right now?!
It was a silent scream.
"...Just how old are you?"
"I am thirty-two."
"LIES?!"
In the end, the silent scream became a very loud one.
At the out-of-nowhere bombshell, even Alfia stiffened for an instant. Then, with a faintly flustered air, she glanced over at her patron goddess—
Lies—?! Lies— lies— lies— (echo)
—and saw her goddess wearing precisely the same arrogant expression as any of her other children. Alfia's confusion curdled into outright disbelief.
The truth was, adventurers tended to look young. A god's blessing (the falna) suppressed even the inevitable fate of all living things — aging. But even that power had its limits. Alfia was still young, so it hardly concerned her, but with age, skin inevitably sagged and wrinkled. Voices lost their clarity, and the body began its slow decline. True, the falna forcibly preserved both lifespan and one's prime — but unless one belonged to a long-lived race like elves or pallum, the limit came for everyone in the end.
She stole a glance at the skin visible between the folds of his black robe. Not a wrinkle — not a single blemish. Clear, clean, springy skin. That thin voice from before included, no matter how she looked at him, she could not see a man in his thirties.
But judging by his movements, his race was almost certainly human. And that was why she'd been shocked. She had never seen a human who aged this slowly — all the more so for an adventurer, a profession that invited stress upon stress.
"How?! Why?! Howwww?!"
Someone's shriek rang shrilly through her ears. It was the woman who'd been lamenting lately that her skin seemed to be sagging.
Regardless, the racket was beginning to irritate Alfia.
"...Right. I have been rude again. I shall grant you my pardon — now, tell me your name."
Grant me my pardon...?
It was an odd way to put it, but she had asked, so answer he must.
"My name... is Vesta."
"...Vesta?"
A name she had never heard before. But given that pause of his earlier, there was every chance it was an alias.
He's the type who can't tell a lie. Just like Meteria.
"Vesta?"
"Vesta, you say?"
"Hm?"
Then, from both sides, came voices thick with bewilderment — the hysteric goddess and the bug (a male god). The two of them had sensed something in the interloper's name, and a trace of panic flickered across their faces.
So it's not an alias?
If he were lying, they would never react like that... perhaps he really had given his true name. But that hardly mattered. What mattered was that she had heard the name — and that she had made up her mind.
"Vesta. Yes — a fine name. It will be worth remembering."
"Ah... thank you?"
"...Right. Now then — die."
"...Huh?"
"[Gospel]"
In that instant, every sound in the world vanished.
Unlike before, this spell had been fired at full power. Alarm bells screamed through him. He knew it instinctively: that attack was stronger than even his maximum-output [Firebolt].
With [Argonaut], perhaps — but in pure force, he could never hope to cancel it out. And it was already far too late to invoke [Argonaut].
"[Firebolt]!"
Then there was nothing to do but rapid-fire.
"!"
Flame bolts tore out in an instant — seventeen of them. Ten were devoured by the [Sound] and vanished. Five ground the shockwave to a halt, and of the two that remained, one gave its all to carve open a path. Cracks spider-webbed across the rampart he had believed unbreakable, and the lone surviving bolt charged at Alfia like a maddened bull.
And Alfia—
"[Ataraxia]"
The bolt broke and washed harmlessly around her.
It was Vesta who panicked. He had been certain she would do something — and when she simply took the attack head-on, his composure shattered. That hesitation bred an opening. And in this place, there was not a soul who would fail to seize one.
"[Gospel]"
THWAAANG—!
Perhaps she hadn't packed much mind into it, for the blow was weak — and yet still amply lethal. That he had dodged at all was thanks purely to hard-won experience, instinct, and no small help from [Luck].
"...Haha."
Laughter spilled out of him unbidden. They say that when a person tumbles into a situation absurd beyond all reason, laughter is what comes. This was precisely that situation, to the letter.
"You've a decent sense for it."
"...Thank you."
Staring at Alfia standing amid the smoke — not a speck of dust on her, let alone a scorch mark — he felt hollowed out. So that was why she hadn't dodged... there had never been any need to.
She definitely chanted just now.
A new chant, different from the one she used for offense. No-chant was remarkable enough on its own, but to carry two as well... she truly was a formidable woman.
A defensive spell, then?
Its exact workings were still beyond him, but one thing was certain: that chant had stopped his magic cold.
Straightforward defense... or maybe, like Argonaut, something specialized for anti-magic.
Perhaps experience had finally accumulated, because he found he could roughly pick an opponent apart now. Fighting so many bizarre cases had probably helped with that.
"You don't seem very surprised."
"I've seen something like it before."
Argonaut was, in the truest sense of the word, a mage-killer. Tremendous mobility and offensive power, topped off with nightmarish magic reflection. It performed so vilely against mages that one would swear it had been born for the sole purpose of slaughtering them.
But this woman was no Argonaut. She was a pure mage — which meant weak at close quarters, and her magic defended without reflecting. What was more, the fact that she needed to chant marked it as active-type defense: ferocious in the instant it was raised, but riddled with gaps between casts. A perfectly workable opponent.
And besides — his purpose here had never been anything more than to buy time. In just a little while longer, those two would make their escape to safety.
And I, meanwhile...
All he had to do was keep wringing seconds out of that terrifying woman.
Gulp.
He swallowed without meaning to. The woman he ought to be able to hold his own against somehow loomed strangely, vastly larger than before.
It was just his imagination... right?