Siruntel Demonic Realm (5)
Barely any time had passed since the Burrow incident, and already the academy was thrown into chaos once more.
This time the shock ran deeper than before.
In all the long years Elprime Academy had stood, the Tower of Illusions had never once malfunctioned.
Alcyon Serzef, Dean of Elprime Academy, burst through the doors of Tower One with urgency written across his face.
"What is the situation!"
Inside, a throng of instructors and professors already held their posts. Alcyon turned again to the senior mage professors among them.
"Well?"
"…It's like this."
Sweat poured down their faces as they sketched out the rough picture. One formula within the tower's magic array had twisted, setting off a chain reaction that corrupted every remaining formula. In the process, warp magic had triggered, transferring every cadet inside to some unknown location—leaving only the artifacts they had worn lying empty on the ground.
"…"
Alcyon stood dumbfounded. As a high-ranking mage who had devoted himself to the study of magic, he knew such a thing was theoretically possible. But theory was all it had ever been—an astronomically slim chance. And yet that chance had just become reality.
"Good heavens… No."
He snapped himself out of the daze. That was not what mattered now. First he had to confirm the cadets' safety.
"So where exactly were they transferred?"
"We can't determine that. The formulas and mana are tangled far too intricately…"
"…Is that so?"
Alcyon tilted his head and stepped into the training chamber himself. He was a high mage of the Seventh Circle, on the very threshold of the Eighth—an Archmage in all but name. No mage at the academy stood higher.
"…Hmm."
He closed his eyes and tried to trace the residual mana, only to frown at once. It was like a mass of knotted threads. Hundreds—thousands—of formulas and dozens of different mana natures lay snarled together in a hopeless snarl.
"I misjudged this."
The Tower of Illusions had been raised by the combined efforts of countless Archmages. For something of that scale to break down, expecting the faculty alone to fix it had been pure folly. Even an Archmage arriving in person might not be enough.
"It seems I will have to go to the capital."
Alcyon made the decision without hesitation. The only proper course was to travel to the capital and request aid from the Archmages directly. A failure of the Tower of Illusions was unprecedented; they would come to assess the phenomenon without a second thought.
He strode swiftly toward his office.
Yet neither Alcyon, nor the instructors, nor the professors—nor even the other cadets lingering nearby—felt any true alarm at that moment. They all assumed that a random transfer would drop the students somewhere in the southern or eastern reaches of the Empire, not far from Elprime itself. The cadets swept away were all eighteen years old, old enough to find their own way home. Even if they landed in some deserted wilderness, they were trained martial artists; each could look after himself. Those present even expected most of the cadets to return to the academy on their own.
It was not mere complacency. The notion that they had been flung all the way to the far western edge of the Empire and dropped en masse into the heart of an open demonic realm was simply too far-fetched for ordinary imagination. Even if someone had voiced the thought, it would have been dismissed as needless fretting.
What made Alcyon hurry was the roster of those caught in the transfer: Leon Crusif, Carotin Bastio, Celia Helbridge, and even the imperial princess Esabel.
…How could something this absurd even happen?
Alcyon clicked his tongue and began chanting a teleportation spell.
Slash!
Claws raked across Celia's chest. Through the spray of blood, a fist—already burst and mangled—shot forward.
Crunch!
The sound of bone snapping. Whether it came from the beast or from her own fist no longer mattered. Celia drove her outstretched leg into the creature's jaw with every ounce of strength she had left.
Thud!
The beast flew backward and crashed to the ground, yet she did not press the attack to finish it.
"Grrrrrr!"
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
There was more than one enemy here.
Once more, with grinding effort, Celia forced her screaming legs to move.
"Ugh!"
An unwanted moan slipped past her lips. She tried to swallow it down, ashamed of how pathetic it sounded, but the searing pain defied sheer willpower. Her tear ducts answered the dizzying stimulus of their own accord.
"Hah! Khh…!"
Moisture welled at the corners of her eyes. She wiped at the blurring vision with the back of her hand, only to smear more blood across it and make everything worse. Her sight grew hazy and dark. A sharp ringing filled her dull ears. Sensation itself dulled, as though she were drifting through a dream.
"Krooooooh!"
"Kkieeeeeek!"
The beasts' howls drew closer.
"…"
Celia glanced back. Between the withered trees, black shapes surged in endless waves. Massive demonic beasts smashed through trunks as they charged; four-legged ones raced forward like hounds; monkey-like creatures leapt from branch to branch. The killing intent they poured out was so thick she had to bite down hard on her tongue just to keep her fading consciousness from slipping away.
…
How long had she been running? Clinging to a consciousness that kept cutting out, dragging a body that insisted it could go no farther, Celia finally stopped.
"Haa… haa…?"
"…"
She pushed through the undergrowth—and found her path blocked by a sheer cliff that filled her entire field of view, a wall of stone rising dozens of meters high.
"…Ah."
The smooth face offered not a single foothold. In her present state she doubted she could climb even if someone handed her a ladder. Scaling this cliff was impossible.
"Hah…"
A soft, bitter laugh escaped her. She walked slowly forward, trembling hands brushing the stone. Carefully, almost reverently, she began to draw a line across the wall. When she finished, the black rock bore a crest painted in her own blood: crossed spears with a four-horned stag at their center—the emblem of House Helbridge.
Celia turned her back on it.
"Heh."
Her quiet laugh had already shifted into something almost playful.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
Heavy footfalls crashed through the forest she had just fled. The beasts burst into the open, realizing at last that their prey's flight was over, and slowed their pace.
"Grrrr…!"
"Keeeee!"
They closed in from three sides, welcoming the end of the long chase, the cliff sealing her only remaining exit. Thick saliva already dripped from gaping jaws as if they could taste her. Nostrils flared, drinking deep of her scent the way a gourmet savors a meal before the first bite.
"Khkhkh."
Even faced with that nightmare, Celia's smile did not fade. What more was there to say? She raised both fists and settled into a stance—like a warrior who refuses to yield even with a blade at her throat, like a fighter who will not stop so long as consciousness remains. Celia would not cease struggling until the very last breath.
"What are you waiting for?"
If this truly was the end, she wanted to fall as a proud martial artist to the final moment.
"Come on, you bastards."
The fighting spirit that poured from the half-dead girl was so vast it seemed impossible. Dozens of beasts flinched as one.
But only for an instant.
"…Kraaaaaaah!"
As if ashamed of their hesitation, they launched themselves at her in a single black tide.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
A savage, roaring wave of darkness that looked far too vast for one small girl to withstand.
"Hoo."
Celia clenched her fists tight.
"Haaaaah!"
She poured every last scrap of strength into the final punch of her life.
And then—
Jecheon Sword Style — Second Form
Manunbicheon
Clouds fell from the heavens—
—and the enemies were carved apart as one.
Kwaaaaaaaaaah—!
It was a storm of blades. In the cascading festival of blue sword-clouds, the beasts' blood, flesh, and bone were shredded into fragments that shot skyward. Dozens of demonic creatures burst like fireworks, helpless. A blue-black rain of gore whipped through the air; death-screams rose in a single chorus.
The sight was so unreal that Celia froze mid-punch, blinking.
Tap.
Then a man landed lightly in front of her, and she stared, stunned, at his back. His entire body was a lattice of torn wounds, soaked in black blood.
"You all right?"
He turned. A half-burned cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. When he grinned, the cut on his cheek split wider and blood dripped steadily down. Those fiercely blazing red eyes looked like a predator's—yet the gaze that swept over her injuries held clear concern.
Standing before the mountain of corpses, the man seemed so strong, so beautiful, that it felt as though he had reached down and pulled her up by the hand just as she was falling into hell.
"Honestly."
Celia let out a helpless, breathless laugh.
"If you show up looking that cool, how am I supposed to not fall for you?"