Chapter 116: The Conclusion
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 116: The Conclusion
“Follow me.”
True to her military nature, Adelheid sought to resolve this in a straightforward manner. And naturally, Evangeline, confident in her own abilities, had no reason to refuse.
Yohan, horrified, was the only one to jump between them, trying to stop them.
“Wait, Teacher! What is this all of a sudden…?”
“Yohan, there are times when a witch cannot back down… For me, that time is now.”
“This isn't some grand battle…”
A love triangle fight, two women fighting over one man. Though it was nothing to be proud of, Evangeline—no, the two witches—marched confidently onto the battlefield.
Far in the distance, Yohan could only stare in disbelief as the two witches flew out over the sea.
“…Whatever. It'll sort itself out somehow.”
He had given up.
Flight. It was something all witches could do, yet at the same time, something not all witches could do.
Simply flying by releasing magic power was a waste of mana, a method far too crude for witches who considered themselves intellectuals capable of analyzing the very structure of the world.
Moreover, in a battle between witches, wasting mana in such a way was a surefire path to defeat.
‘Not bad.’
In that sense, watching Adelheid fly, Evangeline could gauge her level. Or more precisely, how deeply she had explored her own magic.
The Witch of Congelation, was it? Adelheid was freezing the sea beneath her feet and gliding across its surface as if skating.
Evangeline didn't know it, but this was flight utilizing the phenomenon of superconductivity, brought on by cryogenic temperatures nearing absolute zero.
However.
“First strike wins!”
An undignified surprise attack. As Evangeline lunged at a timing the soldier Adelheid could never have anticipated, Adelheid's expression hardened slightly as she stretched out a hand.
The cannonball of mana Evangeline fired was blocked by an ice wall formed from the seawater, and Adelheid scoffed as if to ask, Is that all you've got?
But that, too, was a trap. Evangeline immediately began to fuse the surrounding seawater.
Vweeeeeeeeee—!!
As an ultra-high frequency, the kind one might hear from a nuclear reactor, assaulted her ears, Adelheid sensed the gravity of the situation and froze all the seawater around her, creating an ice wall that encased her body completely.
“Too slow.”
Immediately, nuclear fusion ignited, and a sun descended upon the earth. A nuclear explosion erupted—one that would have wiped out all the soldiers and civilians on the beach had she not controlled the direction of its force—and a mushroom cloud of superheated vapor obscured all vision.
A single blow she believed could annihilate any being in one shot. Evangeline grinned, imagining Adelheid reduced to nothing, not even dust.
“Indeed. I see you have reason to be confident.”
And that grin shattered the moment a voice called out from within the obscuring steam.
Evangeline frowned slightly, glaring into the vapor. Several sharp ice spikes flew out, narrowly spiraling past her, and from within the steam, a perfectly unharmed Adelheid emerged.
“However, it seems we're a bad match-up, aren't we?”
One hundred fifty million degrees Celsius. Unharmed even by a nuclear fusion attack that replicated the sun in the sky, Adelheid spoke as she slowly extended her hand.
At her command, the seawater along the coast froze solid, and the waves stopped in their tracks.
“I am the Witch of Congelation.”
Not a witch who simply makes things cold.
A being who reduces all energy activity to zero.
The Witch of Entropy.
“The Guardian of the Empire."
C-crack—.
Then, the frozen atmosphere began to tremble.
An intense heat rivaling the sun.
All that heat... where could it possibly have gone?
"I am Adelheid, Battalion Commander of the 2nd Battalion, Northern Defense Line.”
Heat is energy.
And she fired back the very heat she had stolen.
A second sun descended upon the earth.
Whoooooosh—!
A typhoon raged. A nuclear typhoon.
Yohan, who had come out of the hotel, shielded his face from the nuclear typhoon battering his entire body and walked toward the sea.
The area by the sea, which had momentarily become a vacuum as all the air was blown away, now began to suck it back in.
The typhoon blew, and then the wind began to be drawn back in reverse. Thrown forward and backward, Yohan somehow managed to keep his balance against the violent swaying and reached the beach.
“Crazy, what the hell is going on!?”
“Run! Shit! Is this a monster attack!?”
“The Battalion Commander! Get the Battalion Commander!”
Even for soldiers who had fought countless monsters, a natural disaster of this scale was terrifying. Panicked soldiers could be seen everywhere.
In the distance, a tidal wave surged. A wave taller than most buildings came rushing in.
As the soldiers fled in terror from the colossal wave, large enough to be fatal if they were swept away, the tidal wave that had risen high enough to block out the sun froze solid.
“It's the... the Battalion Commander!”
“The Battalion Commander is fighting!”
“Alright, everyone grab your weapons! We're helping the Battalion Commander!”
Seeing the frozen tidal wave, the soldiers regained their hope. Yohan's expression hardened as he watched them belatedly run toward the train to retrieve their weapons.
‘Why... why is this fight dragging on for so long?’
Most witches were no match for his teacher. The only beings who had ever put up a decent fight against Evangeline were monsters worthy of the name.
Monsters that could distort all phenomena at will, or great witches who ruled over space, rendering any attack useless.
His teacher was not someone who would struggle this long against a witch she had met by chance.
‘Could it be... is something wrong with her...?’
He wondered if she had caught a cold or was in poor condition, but—knowing full well that witches, unlike humans, didn't catch things like colds—Yohan shook his head.
Even he himself wouldn't catch a cold if he rolled around naked on a snow-covered mountain in winter. Mana supplemented their physical abilities, making them immune to most common illnesses.
If that was the case, then the only reason the fight was lasting this long was because Adelheid's skills were on par with Evangeline's.
‘I can't believe it...’
I want to see it up close. With that thought, Yohan pulled a spellbook containing Margaret's magic from his coat.
She had demanded it back immediately, but he had stubbornly refused to return it, and now the spellbook had become his personal item. Infusing it with mana using the trick he'd learned from his previous encounter with her, Yohan's body teleported beyond the frozen tidal wave.
What Yohan saw upon arriving beyond the wave were ice spikes extending far into 4-dimensional space, and his teacher, calmly advancing through them.
‘…Damn, she's beautiful.’
Yohan casually flicked away the ice spikes flying toward him as he watched the two fight.
The scattering shards of ice reflected the light, making Evangeline's face sparkle. Beautiful.
His teacher was beautiful even when she was still, but in a situation like this, she looked like a work of art.
“─I wish you'd just go down already. You monster.”
“Look who's talking. You're persistent. Is it because you're an old maid?”
The two continued to hurl magic at each other, not noticing that Yohan had approached.
It was mostly Adelheid attacking and Evangeline defending. Occasionally, Evangeline would attack Adelheid, but just like Adelheid's attacks, hers couldn't reach their target either.
Since their magic was completely ineffective against each other, it had become a pure battle of power.
A contest to see whose mana was greater, whose reserves were larger.
And naturally—even in a fight like this, Evangeline had no memory of ever losing.
However.
“This is getting tedious. I need to see Yohan, so let's just end this.”
“I agree. Shall we wrap this up?”
The two agreed not to drag the fight out needlessly, but to pour everything they had into a single, final blow.
The first reason was that defeating each other had never been the goal in the first place; the second was that the longer they dragged this out, the longer they'd have to wait to see Yohan.
A dramatic agreement. The two began to scrape together every last drop of their remaining mana.
The magic of love and the magic of congelation.
Conceptual magic that manipulates the preference of all phenomena and concepts in the world clashed with physical magic that controls the kinetic energy of all things.
A clash of abstract concepts and physical phenomena. A terrible, grating sound enveloped the world, as if signaling its end.
And as a result, the two witches, both battered and broken, fell into the sea.
“–Teacher!”
Seeing Evangeline fall into the sea covered in wounds, Yohan quickly dashed toward her.
Evangeline, who had been floating listlessly in the churning sea, saw Yohan approach and began to giggle.
“Heh, heheh... I won.”
“What nonsense are you talking about...? At best, it was a draw.”
“That's not it. It was never that kind of fight to begin with...”
Evangeline said, reaching a hand toward Yohan. Then she pulled his face toward hers and kissed him.
Phew—after letting out a ragged breath, she spoke.
“It was a fight to win you, Yohan. So the moment you chose me, I won. Right?”
It was a forced, unreasonable argument... but he had to admit she had a point. As Yohan quietly nodded, Evangeline went limp.
“Ughhh... Yohaaan, I'm so tired... Hold me... And replenish my mana...”
“...I'll do it if you promise not to do this again.”
“I can't promise that...”
“Then no.”
“Ehhh...”
Seeing the dejected Evangeline, Yohan slung her over his shoulder. Then, as if to comfort her, he began to pat her body.
“Instead, is it okay if I do whatever I want with my limp teacher?”
“...Hehe, I'd like that even more.”
“Well then...”
Just as he was about to leave, Yohan spotted Adelheid floating aimlessly in the sea.
His teacher might not like it, but he couldn't just leave someone in the ocean.
In the end, he slung her over his other shoulder as well and made his way out of the sea.