Mage Milia (8)
Irina had been trying to help Jim.
That is, right up until he came dragging that revolting tentacle monster along with him.
She had bad memories where tentacles were concerned.
Comparatively recent ones, at that. The vulgar, juvenile squabble she'd once had with Esmeralda — even now, remembering the humiliation she'd suffered back then made her teeth chatter.
Of course, it had been Irina's own fault entirely.
Even so, unlike her usual self — the woman who settled every matter with thorough, surgical precision — the way everything had spiraled wildly out of control that day left a trauma behind, and the tentacles that had sparked it all were something she couldn't help but fear.
Worse still, she remembered with painful vividness how the tentacles the Hero had conjured had wound lecherously around her body — and now, standing right before her, was a fusion of nightmares even more dreadful than that.
"That way! Go that way!"
Irina panicked so badly that for one instant she was ready to abandon Jim altogether.
What she and Esmeralda had done back then was mere play. That — that thing out there — was the real deal.
The madness Milia harbored within. Irina was freshly reminded that Milia wasn't just lecherous — she was insanely lecherous.
When the depraved contents of that book she'd read flitted through her mind — things even Irina's imagination could never have conjured — the terror was beyond words.
Whooosh!
But Jim, as though he understood her heart all too well, veered sharply in the other direction.
'Oh, Heavenly God...'
'Right. I didn't expect much anyway.'
In that instant, their mutual favorability crossed paths — one rising, the other plunging.
Moved despite herself, Irina belatedly racked her brain to rescue Jim.
"Jim! Keep running straight!"
It might have looked as though she were shoving him toward sacrifice, but thankfully Jim didn't misunderstand.
Judging by the divine power gathering in Irina's hands, if he acted as bait, she looked more than capable of dealing with the tentacle monster chasing at his heels.
Yes — one shouldn't expect too much from one's master.
Without a vanguard, these people were little more than paper dolls to begin with.
It was only right that Jim, tempered by his long life as the party's pack mule, take point now.
'Good. Right—'
'Now!'
Their hearts finally in sync.
Their eyes met across the field.
A moment later, the holy magic Irina unleashed wrapped snugly around Jim's body.
The highest-efficiency speed-enhancement divine spell she was capable of casting.
Shoes of the Whirlwind
Pure-white divine power gathered at Jim's ankles and summoned up a storm.
"KYYYAAAAAHGH!"
Jim shrieked at the sudden bombardment of holy power. Betrayed by the very comrade he'd trusted, struck from behind.
In his real-time internal evaluation, Jim scored Irina a flat zero — and even as he suppressed the agony, he ran for his life.
Unfair as it was, Irina's divine magic dealt Jim considerable damage, but it undeniably granted him the buff as well.
"Kkie... urghk!"
Complaining of the pain here would only make things hopelessly awkward. Jim gritted his teeth and sprinted clear of the tentacle monster.
'This is right.'
Astonishingly, it hadn't been a mistake at all.
As far as Irina could tell, there was nothing she could do against the tentacle-monster magic Milia had conjured.
That thing wasn't a demonkin or a monster — it was a shape wrought from magic itself.
Divine power was a killer only against demonkin; measured against magic of the same caliber, it possessed maybe a third of its potency.
To unravel the spells of Milia — a battle mage, hardened and trained as she was — would take Irina considerable time no matter what.
She had trusted that Jim would understand.
Of course, for Jim — who'd had no warning whatsoever and been bombarded with holy power anyway — Irina was simply one more enemy.
Jim's internal evaluation of Saintess Irina plummeted vertically once again.
"Jim! Circle all the way around and come back to me! I'm preparing a barrier starting now!"
At their first encounter she'd been so flustered she'd shoved him away, but by now she had recovered her wits.
True, if the tentacles got close, Irina was confident she'd foam at the mouth and faint — but for the moment, she had to stay calm. And it was at the very moment she began preparing her barrier that it happened.
"...Irina, don't get in my way."
Milia, who had been trailing Jim in complete silence, abruptly came to a stop and leveled a warning at Irina.
Naturally — an outsider had appeared and was interfering with her hunt.
Of course she'd be displeased. It was only logical.
Though to Irina's ears, it was a laughably absurd thing to say.
"Ha! Lady Milia."
Irina glared at Milia with an expression of sheer incredulity.
This lecherous little brat. She'd never liked her, going all the way back.
Irina loaded her most powerful weapon — the tongue that could shatter an opponent's mind outright.
But...
"Uh, Lady Milia?"
At that moment, something caught her eye, and Irina's voice died in her throat.
But Milia, oblivious to the anomaly, simply shook her head at the silent Irina and warned her again.
"It won't matter if you try to stop me. I'm several times stronger than you."
"No, that's not it — Lady Milia?"
Irina stared at Milia, cold sweat beading down her face. No — not at Milia. At the sky above her head.
"...I think it might be best if you stepped aside from there."
"Hm?"
Only then did Milia lift her gaze to the sky — and she saw what was happening.
"Huh? That's..."
Even when the sun had begun to fall over the Magic Tower, Irina had never once considered her an easy opponent.
But the master of the tower was a monster in her own right.
Esmeralda, who had chosen to stay behind, was still green — but she was a being worthy of being called the Hero.
Dangerous, yes, but surely she could hold out. That was what Irina had believed.
"What the—?"
She was far away, and so she could see it with perfect clarity. Seven fireballs in total, suspended in the sky, aside from the real sun hanging above.
Even having seen it, could Irina have sworn to anything?
No — this was no time to be quibbling over such things.
"Lady Milia!!"
Because two of those fireballs were falling straight down onto Milia's head.
"Kgh!"
Esmeralda had been pushed back relentlessly from start to finish in her fight against the Legion Commander, Five.
There was simply that much of a gulf in their standing.
The one consolation, for now, was that in pure swordsmanship, Esmeralda held the higher ground.
It was a razor's edge, but she was definitively catching Five's flame-licking blade on her own.
What would have happened if what she held now weren't the Holy Sword?
She might have melted away long ago under Five's flaming blade.
Even as such thoughts ran through her mind, Esmeralda's eyes burned fierce.
"You hold up well? So the Hero really is the Hero."
"Whew... And you're not quite as strong as you look."
Esmeralda wiped the sweat streaming down her face and glared at her opponent.
Legion Commander Five truly possessed strength befitting the title.
The overwhelming spectacle of her entrance, and the way she wielded flame as though it were her own hands and feet.
By nature she was probably a rear-line artillery type, like Milia or Irina.
And yet she was swinging a sword at roughly Esmeralda's own level. It made her teeth grind.
"Something's strange, though."
But that was all.
"What's so strange, little Hero?"
"Little? Well... no, come to think of your age, I suppose you're right."
Esmeralda raised her sword with a needling smirk. Around her, blades wreathed in cold air floated in formation — the mages' frost enchantments.
They were in the Glacies Magic Tower, after all; immediate support had arrived.
Esmeralda counted it a blessing, and yet she couldn't help narrowing her eyes at the situation before her.
Her opponent was far too relaxed. Granted, she seemed to be only half trying...
'Objectively speaking, if Tower Master Glisha joins in, we hold the advantage.'
Even if the enemy wielded fire at full strength, combined with Glisha, Esmeralda believed they could win.
But that was precisely what was strange.
"I've met other Legion Commanders, and you seem weaker than they are."
Five was unquestionably a monster whose aggregate estimated level exceeded one thousand — and yet, clashing with her head-on, she felt weaker than Eleven.
Eleven had overwhelmed Esmeralda with a single sword alone.
Granted, there was a difference in attitude. Eleven had taken Esmeralda seriously and fought at full power, while Five was toying with her.
But even accounting for that, Five's level was far too high.
"That's right. I'm a bit injured, you see. The doctor told me not to do anything too strenuous."
"Ah, really? Then shouldn't you be curled up in a sickbed? Whatever are you doing crawling out to a frontier like this?"
"Now, now, none of that, dear. A burn like mine does love a nice cool place, doesn't it?"
Legion Commander Five parried every one of Esmeralda's barbs with easy poise.
An injury preventing her from fighting at full strength? Sure. Fine. Entirely plausible.
But there was a problem that explanation alone couldn't cover.
"Then how are you this relaxed? What are you hiding?"
"A hunch... no, I see. Is that the authority you were granted?"
"..."
A holy relic of the Fire Spirit Order, said to have been born from a Hero's corpse.
But the more Esmeralda conversed with her, the more their blades crossed, the more she suspected that this woman was none other than the Hero herself — the Hero who was supposed to be dead.
From the start, what had nagged at her wasn't merely Five's strength.
Carbuncle Soul Lv. EX
A trait every bit as bizarre as the Blue Blood Jim carried.
And if suspicious was the game, this one won hands down — after all, its level was displayed as EX.
What could that possibly mean?
That a single trait had reached its absolute end?
'No...'
Esmeralda didn't believe that. There was no such thing as a realm of "the end" in this world.
Individuals had their limits, but scholarship and craft had none.
Then what if the trait she possessed wasn't a completed, granted power with no room left to grow?
Yes. What if, for instance—
"Carbuncle Soul. That's an authority you awakened back when you were the Hero, isn't it?"
"You can tell even that? Impressive. It's an authority I covet, I'll admit. Aah, if I'd had something like that, life would've been so much easier."
Just like the Emerald Tablet Esmeralda had received upon becoming the Hero, this was not an ability Five had flowered into on her own — it was something bestowed upon her.
"What does it do, that power of yours?"
"You think I'd just tell you?"
"I do, actually. That's how it looks. With all the leisure you've got right now, you could stand to share."
"AHAHAHAHA! You really are something else. Hm, I like you. When you die, I'm making you my little sister."
"My corpse already has prior commitments. You'll have to take a number and wait in line."
"Popular to the very end, aren't you."
"I do my best."
Esmeralda felt the trembling in her sword hand come to a stop. Her ragged breathing, too, steadied.
The conversation itself had been a means of buying back a moment's composure.
No doubt her opponent knew it, too. Even so, she'd played along because — as she'd said herself — she was simply playing around right now.
"Fine, I'll tell you. The authority I was granted back in my Hero days."
Five curled her lips into a sinister smile and snapped her fingers.
Reading the gesture as some kind of signal, Esmeralda went taut with vigilance and swept her surroundings in an instant.
And — whether it was thanks to that sweep or not — she finally understood why her opponent had been so relaxed all along.
"Oh, before that. Tower Master — haven't you been wondering why she's so late?"
Another fireball fell from the sky. It was nearly as massive as the mantle that had wreathed Five when she first appeared.
And the instant Esmeralda realized what that meant...
she grasped the true nature of the authority called Carbuncle Soul.
"That one's been keeping me company in her own way, you see. I gave her three of me, as a special treat. Two should be plenty for you."
"..."
"Aren't you grateful for such generous treatment?"
A crimson jewel polished into the shape of an egg. From that jewel, a flame was born, imbued with a soul — and from it, a body was made.
Another herself entirely.
At the sight of Legion Commander Five multiplying into two before her eyes, Esmeralda cried out as though she'd been cheated.
"Your ability looks a hundred times better than mine!"
For her, it was a matter of grave importance.